Wild Boot: The Net Games
by Rarstarr
Summary: Continuing from Wild Boot, The Net Games is the story of the sprites of mainframe, their missing friends, and a new group of sprites.
1. v 2,1,1

Wild Boot: The Net Games

By David Farr

Tenchi Muyo is copyright of AIC : Pioneer LDC, INC. ReBoot is the property of Mainframe. Ranma 1/2 is copyrighted by Rumiko Takahashi/Shogakukan,Inc. All are used here respectfully for the purposes of fanfiction. This story may be redistributed only if unchanged and no fee is charged.

*****

"Game over." The system voice, normally passive and disinterested, had a sinister tone to it, as if mocking the four sprites standing below. "User wins."

The tall blue sprite spun, looking for a way out, any way. Only the sight of scenery dissolving into purple pulsating energy greeted his eyes. The dark walls seethed and crumbled, swirling away into the energy haze, then slowly the floor was eaten away. Closer and closer the glow came, approaching from all side, till at last even the ground beneath his feet vanished. Then the energy consumed his feet, and the sprite screamed soundlessly as his very code was torn apart.

"RRRRAAAANNNNNMMMMMAAAAAA!!!!!" Akane Tendo sat bolt upright, sending the blankets flying from her. Confused moments passed until she recognised where she was, her own room in the Principal Office.

Sobbing quietly, Mainframe's once proud defender pulled her knees up to her chest and hid her tear streaked face. It was the same nightmare. The one she'd been suffering every time she went offline, ever since... since... she had lost him.

*****

Nabiki: He came from the Net,

Through Systems, Peoples and Cities,

To our home,

Mainframe.

Now,

He's gone.

In the wake of his loss

Comes a new threat,

But also a new hope.

*****

v 2.1.1 : Aftermath

*****

The first explosion surprised everyone, shattering the silence that had followed Akane's scream and sending the assembled CPUs into disarray. Like a hungry pack of nulls the ABCs had risen out of G-Prime and swarmed in towards the vehicles, bolts of blazing death searing the air itself. Many binomes had lost their processes in those first few seconds, others had simply turned tail and run.

Akane's driver was the best Nabiki had been able to find, but even he was having a hard time keeping his car in the air. "Madam Defender, what should..." his words died in his mouth as he saw Akane curled up her eyes wide-open and unseeing of the devastation outside the car.

The communicator flashed to life, and Nabiki Tendo, Mainframe's Indexer, appeared in the panel. "Akane what's happening?! Report!"

The zero binome looked between the communicator and the withdrawn girl in the passenger seat. "Ah, Indexer, ma'am, the Defender is ah... off-line at the moment."

Nabiki glared out at the poor binomee. "What?! Never mind. I'm taking combat command. You get her back here. Understand? Her survival is your only concern."

The driver acknowledged her with a nod and a salute. "Yes, ma'am." He arced the car away and started weaving at high speeds through the lethal energy being exchanged by the two opposing forces.

*****

The Vid window snapped shut, revealing the system displays beyond them. Things did not look good. Akane was down, she didn't know why, but Kasumi had hurried out the moment she had heard, leaving Nabiki with a control room full of scurrying binomes.

With a deep breath Nabiki got to business. "Get the civilian reserves into the air NOW!" she snapped at the nearest binome, who hurried away, grateful for some direction. Nabiki turned to look at the map table that dominated the War Room. Her eyes darted across the images, focusing only momentarily on each of the vehicle icons. "Send a message, I want the first and fourth wings to rally at the grid reference beta-one-three-nine by charlie-nine-two-three, the second and ninth move to Baudway and all others to retreat to shore up the Principal Office's defences."

"Yes ma'am!" the binomes on the floor cried before directing their attentions to their work.

That done Nabiki turned to the binome that had taken Kasumi's place. The spectacles that framed his eye had a loop of tape securing them together and red spots covered the block that held his mouth. It was a look that did not inspire confidence in her. "Enty Esscy, get the Principal Office's shields up as soon as Akane's car's in then I want all emplacements ready to fire."

"Of course Nabiki," Enty replied in a nasal tone.

That done, Nabiki turned her attention back to the windows floating above the system map. Through them she could watch the battle taking place outside and the useless waste of function that accompanied war.

*****

Within the Silicon Tor the virus Kuno stood before a collection of windows smiling in satisfaction. His virals were winning against the poorly organised Central Police Units, and if he knew Akane Tendo, then her only reaction would be to strike back with force, a plan that would lead her to disaster. Yes, everything was finally falling into place. The plans delayed by the Guardian's arrival were once more on track.

A Vid Window popped open, obscuring his view of the battle. Kuno scowled menacingly at the binome general as he reported. "Lord Kuno, the CPUs are on the retreat!"

Kuno smile froze. "That is unlike the defender. Where are they moving to?"

"The Principal Office sir!"

*****

The War Room's door slammed open with alarming force and Mainframe's new charged in, sending personnel scattering. She marched straight up to Nabiki, then paused for a second, collecting herself. Nabiki found the smile directed at her slightly disturbing.

"Nabiki, you've been raiding my workshop," Kasumi accused in her kind voice, sending shivers up the spines of the assembled binomes.

"It seems to be something this family does," Nabiki muttered, not taking her eyes off the windows. "How's Akane?"

"Her bitmap's fine and she's still running, but she's not responding. I've left her in Dr Tofu's capable hands."

Nabiki nodded. "Good."

On the window before her, the wings of CPU's shot over the tramway, followed moments later by a horde of ABCs. Nabiki tensed, watching as the camera followed the ABCs. "Get ready," she directed the binomes. Silence fell, various staffers holding hands over controls. "NOW!"

*****

Baudway was deserted as the twelve CPUs hovered above it. The sounds of battle carried across the distance, growing closer as the ABCs pursued the CPUs heading for the Principal Office. As the echoes of Nabiki's command died in the War room klaxons and the grinding of heavy machinery broke the relative peace of the street.

Passers-by, if there had been any, would've been surprised to see an otherwise solid section of the street suddenly drop a number of pixels down, then grind apart, revealing a massive tunnel leading deep into the system's structure. With a final clunk the doors vanished, leaving only oppressive silence. A silence broken only moments later by the explosive arrival of a massive purple mecha.

Larger than the buildings about it, it was a horrific thing, tall and thin, as if malnourished. The lines of the body looked as if the designer had used a ruler, yet the effect made the monstrous robot appear even more demonic. Its entire form spoke of strength, but also restraint, as if it was something more powerful and that the thin form was all that kept it in check. Along both arms "EVA-01 TEST" was written.

Under the control of its pilot, the mecha lifted the cannon held loosely in one hand and aimed it. Across the city the scene was re-enacted by a second mecha, this one blue and with a more rounded form. On some unheard cue both started firing out towards the swarm of box like ABCs.

*****

Kuno's fist shattered the window. "Nabiki!" he hissed, then turned to face a cowering viral. "Have our forces retreat." The viral saluted and scuttled off. Kuno returned his attention to the cracked pane of the viewing window. "I will avenge myself for this loss Nabiki Tendo, I promise you that."

*****

Nabiki's nose tickled for a moment. "Achoo!"

"Bless you," Kasumi said automatically as the elevator doors opened. She stepped in and turned as Nabiki pushed past her. "Engineering level 4." The doors hissed shut and turbo lift hummed to life. The only sign of movement were the lights flashing past the window on one side. "I do wish you hadn't used the Evangelions."

"It was a desperate gamble," Nabiki returned. "Kuno's little surprise had us overextended and my options were very limited."

Kasumi nodded. "Yes, I understand, but I hadn't managed to stabilise their power source yet. They are quite literally consuming their own resources."

Nabiki let out a string of oaths. "Great, so what'll it take to get them online again?"

The lift came to a halt and the doors hissed open. "I don't kno--" Kasumi's reply was drowned out by the screech of tearing metal, followed by a massive crash. Before them was a scene of utter devastation, both mecha looked like they had been through a war, and lost. The blue one leaned against its support cage, its leg having buckled under its own weight. Next to it the purple EVA had been disarmed, quiet literally, as both of its upper limbs had torn free of their mounts and come crashing to the ground.

Kasumi sighed. "Code degradation is extremely advanced, I'm afraid they're nothing but scrap."

"SPAM!" Nabiki swore. "We'd better keep this quiet. Those things are going to have to be symbols of safety until we find better ones."

"Any candidates in mind?" Kasumi inquired, already knowing the answer.

Nabiki smiled as she answered. "Just one."

*****

"It is not good enough!" The energy blade hissed through the air, its tip stopping just short of zero binome's nose. With a gulp the viral looked up the glowing sword to the massive form of the virus lord. "How dare you say you did not know?! It is your job to know!"

"B-but sir," the binome spy stammered, wishing he could vanish into his overcoat. "Nobody can get into the Lady Kasumi's workrooms. It's simply impossible."

"Nothing is beyond my reach!" Kuno exclaimed, turning and pacing away.

"Except maybe Akane and the pig-tailed-girl," the binome muttered.

The virus spun and fixed glowing red eyes on his servant. "What did you say?!"

"Er, I think I have a plan, sir!" the spy glanced about, thinking fast. "We can track the resources she's using and that'll give us an idea of the size of whatever she's working on."

"Excellent idea, I charge you with carrying it out." Kuno turned his back on the binome. "Do not fail me again, you will not get a third chance."

*****

The sounds of her hurried footsteps echoed off the grey metal walls of the corridor. In the middle of an emergency searching the entire principal office for a single sprite by herself was not something Nabiki wanted to do. Certainly Dr Tofu was surprised to find that he had lost one of the patients from his infirmary. Unfortunately the battle had almost literally filled the room with patients, so no one had noticed Akane quietly slip out the door.

That left Nabiki with a problem. According to both Kasumi and Dr Tofu, Akane was in a bad state and that was something Nabiki wanted to keep quiet. Meaning that a full scale search was out of the question. So it fell to Nabiki to run through the endless maze of the principal office while Kasumi worked with the repair crews.

Mainframe's Indexer glanced down one the darkened corridors, and took another five steps before registering what she had seen. The door to the simulation room. Nabiki shook her head, that was the first place she should have checked for her missing sister. The simulation room was shut down during the emergency, the energy was needed elsewhere, and that made it the prefect place to hide.

The door clanked and groaned open as she approached, revealing the yellow striped black walls, and the gi clad figure standing in the centre. Nabiki stood for a second, watching as Akane struck violently at the air. It took a few seconds for her to realise that her sister was performing one of the basic katas their father had taught them all when they were young, but with such ferocity that it was almost unrecognisable.

"You know, that can't be doing your training any good, sis," Nabiki commented, leaning against the door frame. Akane continued punching the air angrily.

Nabiki gave a deep sigh, then wandered over to her sister. "Do you want to talk about it?" she asked, stepping in front of Akane, just out of range of the blows. Akane glared silently back then kicked out forcing Nabiki to step back. "Hey, watch it."

"Go away," Akane grunted between thrusts.

"Do you really think beating up empty space will ease the pain?" Nabiki sneered. "He's gone Akane, you've got to deal with it, we have bigger problems."

Akane snorted and stopped her exercises. "Right, he screws up and I have to deal with it. That's hardly fair."

"FAIR?! AKANE HE'S BEEN DELETED!" Nabiki raged.

"So?" Akane pulled her belt tight them turned away. "I never wanted him here in the first place."

Nabiki grabbed the back of her sister's gi and jerked her off her feet. Surprised by both the anger and violence her normally reserved sister was displaying, Akane stumbled across the room until she reached the wall.

"Don't give me THAT!" Nabiki exclaimed, stalking over to where Akane leant. "YOU are a GUARDIAN, REMEMBER! It's was HIS parting gift to YOU!"

Akane turned her face away, refusing to look at Nabiki. "I'm not a Guardian, I'm just a cadet."

Nabiki's eyes tightened. "I'm not basic Akane, don't treat me as if I am. This isn't about your skills. You are missing him and hate yourself for all the insults. You've got to forget about all of that and process!"

Akane sniffed, tried to turn further away.

"You can't abandon the system, it would dishonour his memory. The system always came first with him. Will you let it fall? Unless you want his sacrifice to be for nothing you will learn to live with the pain." Nabiki fell silent, there was nothing more to be said.

Nanoseconds passed, then Akane turned to her tear streaked face to look at her sister. "How Nabiki? How?"

Sadly Nabiki closed her eyes. "I don't know Akane. I simply don't know." With a sad smile Nabiki turned and walked, shoulders slumped, towards the door. Stopping to wait for the door to open, she glanced back she to see Akane there, eyes closed, arms wrapped about herself.

Nabiki stepped through the door and waited for it to close before breaking into a smile. "Guess those drama lessons paid off after all."

*****

Baudway was busier than ever. A yellow repair hut sat in the centre of the road, covering some of the damages from the recent battles. Holding a microphone Mike stepped in front of the camera aimed at the tent.

"Inside this hastily erected tent the zeroes and ones of Mainframe's system works department are busy at repairing the damage caused by the recent viral assault," Mike whispered. "Let's go in and surprise them."

The intrepid reporter grabbed the edge of the tent flap and jerked it aside, revealing two binomes in overalls and hardhats kneeling on either side of a low table. Between them sat two cups and saucers, which one was filling from a kettle. Unfortunately Mike's sudden appearance distracted the pourer, causing her to overfill the cup.

Mike let the flap fall back. "Aha, he he," he laughed weakly. "Apparently they're hard at work on a tea ceremony." A cry of pain issued from the tent behind him.

Recovering Mike turned and started crossing the street, ignoring the vehicles swerving to speed past him. "Why don't we try asking some of the business owners in this area what they think of the problems." He stopped outside the oriental building that was the Nekohanten. "Here we have one of Mainframe's most successful businesses. Unfortunately the business has recently changed hands, so we'll be talking to the new owner--"

The swinging doors of the Nekohanten crashed open as the remains of a table were ejected from the restaurant. Mike had just enough time to do an impression of "The Scream" before being flattened.

Once again the doors opened, this time less violently, as Mousse swung his monitor out. "CLEAN UP!" he yelled before vanishing inside again.

Only moments later the two binomes from the construction hut walked in and picked up the table. "Ya know, I'd 'ave thought they'd go through fewer o' dese with 'er ladyship gone," the man commented as they carted it off.

Mike's hand rose from the hole in the pavement. "Back to you in studio Al," he groaned before the hand collapsed back into the hole.

*****

The doors hissed open with surprising urgency, letting a serious looking Nabiki into the control room. Not even waiting for the doors to finish opening she dove through them and strode purposefully up to her sister. "What is it this time?" she demanded.

"Kuno's attacking again," Kasumi replied calmly, placing a cup of energy tea on the console top.

Nabiki's eyes widened in shock. "ALREADY?! Where?!"

There was an explosion that shook the room, sending Kasumi's mug smashing to the ground. "Oh my," the muttered, looking down at the mess. She returned her attention to Nabiki. "He's attacking the Principal Office directly."

"I guessed." Nabiki spun on her feet and charged towards the door. "Get the CPUs in the air and tell the armoury to expect me. We'll stop him, even if I have to pull the trigger!"

*****

Kuno smiled as he looked across the Access Bridge to the Principal Office. For once his spies had been right, the defenders were indeed unprepared for another attack so soon. The massive robots would be unusable so close to their power source and the CPUs were still recovering from the earlier battle, something he had not needed to do. He hadn't been foolish enough to risk his entire force on a single gambit.

Proudly he strode across the bridge towards the prize, virals on zip-boards flanking him and ABCs cruising above. He reached the foot of the stairs and looked up, straight into the barrel of a very large gun.

"Don't take another step virus!" Nabiki snarled from beneath the weapon. A pair of shaking CPU binomes emerged from behind her and pointed there own little pee-shooters at Kuno.

"Indexer, do you really think that will work?" Kuno asked, arrogance dripping from his words. "You may delete me, but my virals will destroy you and your precious system."

Ominous clicks issued forth from the gun. "Maybe I'm just desperate enough to risk that or maybe I have a plan."

"I'd be surprised if you didn't," Kuno raised his energy sword, "however it'll come to naught." He dove forward, his sword slicing through the weapon and sending the two halves spinning off.

Nabiki stared in shock at her now empty hands. She looked up as the two CPUs cried in pain as viral blasts slammed into them. "Oh, spam!"

"Admit your defeat Nabiki Tendo and grovel for your process!" Kuno snarled.

Instinct alone saved the virus' bitmap. He threw himself back moments before the ground he had been standing exploded in a series of small detonations. All eyes rose to look for the source of the attack. There, hanging onto the wall of the Principal Office like a giant red spider, was the Fuchikoma, its gun ports fixed on the virus below..

A circle of light formed around the top of the mecha's dome and a hiss escaped as the hatch unsealed. Slowly the hatch swung open. At first all that could be seen was the edge of the pilot compartment, but then the operators glossy black hair crested the lip of the hatch. Next followed a serious expression, pure hate directed straight at the virus, and finally the pilot sat up, revealing the navy blue uniform and the gold and black Icon on her breast.

"If you want to function, be somewhere else!" Akane Tendo, Guardian of Mainframe, sneered.

Kuno laughed. "Do you really think one lone mecha can stop my army?! Especially that toy!"

He was answered by a mocking smile. "Fuchikoma, destroy the ABCs."

"Yes MA'AM!" the mecha cried and launched a set of missiles from its rear. Each projectile spun and wove through the air, striking a single carrier, destroying it in a blaze of light.

"As you can see, I upgraded the weapons."

Kuno paused for a moment, then leapt upwards at the red mecha. The Fuchikoma's manipulators spat energy at the virus, however at the last moment a black blur shot past, pulling him from the path of the deadly barrage.

"Got ya boss!" Gosunkugi and Sasuke chorused as the trio shot away.

"I will yet prove my worth Akane Tendo!" Kuno cried as he was carried back towards the Tor, his army following.

The Fuchikoma pushed off from the wall and dropped lightly to the ground beside Nabiki. Its pilot swung herself out.

"So what was the plan?" Akane asked, staring after the retreating virals.

"Ahh..." Nabiki started. "Never mind that, I'm glad to see you're back on-line!"

"Yeah well, some of the things you said made sense," Akane turned and walked back into the Principal Office, Fuchikoma clattering along behind her. "Even if you were just acting."

Nabiki stood, hands on hips, watching her sister leave. "Well, we have ourselves a Guardian again, even if she is just a cadet."

*****

The chapel of full binomes, all murmuring quietly. Akane and Nabiki sat at the front, either side of the podium where Kasumi stood, Akane in her Guardian cadet's uniform and Nabiki in her best business suit. The wore an elegant white dress that accented her quiet beauty.

A boom echoed throughout the room as the doors closed, bringing a silence as the conversation stopped.

"We are gathered here," Kasumi started softly, "to honour the memories of the four sprites that sacrificed themselves to defeat the invading web creature and save our system from the web's infection." Kasumi paused for a second before continuing

"Ranma, as a Guardian, always put the system before himself and it was his fate to quit file in its service. He had found a home and a family, and in the end gave his process to protect them." Sniffs and sobs came from about the chapel.

"Living in the games, RyoGA never knew friendship, yet here in Mainframe, I am glad to say, he found it, at least for a while. He owed us nothing, but gladly joined his new friends in their battles for all they loved.

"Shampoo came to us as a vagabond and settled here to become a successful sprite. Never did we ask her to do more than produce fine food, but she too came to our defence. She deserves much more than we ever gave her.

"Finally Ukyo who, despite the distrust her reputation and skills brought, proved to be worthy of both our thanks and our friendship. What set her on the road she chose we shall never know, but that it brought her to us shows that she was right to travel it.

"In passing these four leave us both weaker and stronger. Weaker in that we can on longer rely on their strength when we ourselves fail, but stronger, having known them and seen what is possible. They have given us something to aspire to, and aspire we must, for now there are none other to aid us." Kasumi, like the assemblage, fell silent.


	2. v 2,1,2

Wild Boot: The Net Games

By David Farr

Tenchi Muyo is copyright of AIC : Pioneer LDC, INC. ReBoot is the property of Mainframe. Ranma 1/2 is copyrighted by Rumiko Takahashi/Shogakukan,Inc. All are used here respectfully for the purposes of fanfiction. This story may be redistributed only if unchanged and no fee is charged.

*****

The two sprites squared off across the room from each other. The old man's wisdom and age showed on his face, although his green bitmap showed no sign of wear. He had run the data storage vaults for as long as any sprite in the system could remember, always found wearing the same outfit, cream robes and his glasses that had an annoying habit of reflecting light.

His gaze was calmly directed past his wooden blade, towards his young grandson. Only sixteen megacycles old the green bitmapped boy stood resolute, staring at his grandfather past his own raised weapon. He wasn't an exceptional sprite, but his noble code and honest outlook showed readily on his face. Plus the milliseconds of training he'd been through had made him both strong and fast, despite his ordinary appearance.

"Now boy," the old man snapped.

The youth launched himself across the room, yelling a war cry and brandishing his sword. Swords clashed as the older man effortlessly parried the blow and with a flick of his wrist sent his opponent's weapon arcing through the air. The sword embedded itself in the wall and vibrated for a few nanos. Seconds later the boy slammed head first into the tissue thin closet door.

"Your going to have to practice more before you can get those access keys, Tenchi." The old man said, getting to his feet and heading for the door. "Don't forget that your chores are part of your training."

Tenchi waited until his grandfather was gone before turning, grinning stupidly around the thin crystal access keys between his lips.

*****

Katsuhito: Yosho hunted the web,

Through systems, peoples and cities,

Searching for the web creature Ryoko.

Here he found her,

Battled her,

And defeated her,

Saving the system from her destructive rampage.

But she processes still,

Sealed deep within these archives,

Trapped by his sword.

*****

v 2.1.2: Shrines and Consequences

*****

Tenchi's home system was called Nippon, and the sprites of the net would have called its inhabitants provincial, if they'd known it even existed. This was mainly due to the fact that the sprites of Nippon did not believe the existence of processes beyond their own system, well a few did, but they were just random.

The Masaki family ran the systems core data vault located in the very centre of the forest encircled by the city. Here they tended to the files, aided in the researchers of the increasingly few interested sprites and formatted new data for storage. As the next caretaker for the vault Tenchi had access to all the separate storage bays throughout the transfinite layout of the building. All, that is, except one, its door lock keyed to a unique access key that his grandfather carried about.

Nervously Tenchi ran the access key through the reader. His grandfather had often told him of the legend of the web creature trapped within the room, locked there by Tenchi's own ancestor, Yosho. That had simply sparked his interest. When the old man had found out, he had immediately forbidden him from going near the room, thereby fanning the embers of Tenchi's curiosity.

The card reader beeped harshly, as if making fun of Tenchi's attempts to unlock the door it protected. Grumbling he fumbled with the cards until he found another he hadn't tried. This one brought success as the lock reluctantly gave an acknowledging chime. With a hiss the doors to the info bay opened, revealing a wrecked room beyond.

Shattered lights flickered, sending shadows skittering across the floor. As Tenchi stepped inside an exposed conduit sent out a shower of sparks, causing the boy to flinch.

"Just a surge," he muttered, looking about the room.

Dominating one wall was a data retrieval unit, connected to a storage room on the level below. The large claw that could reach down and bring up windows from below was stuck in a cycle. Continuously it started down, struck the doors blocking the access way, then reset to its default position to try again.

Being the only the only thing in the room in one piece, Tenchi started towards the unit. It didn't take him long to find the problem, someone had thrust a sword into the control panel, interrupting the process. From experience Tenchi knew there was no way to halt the unit once a command was started, so obviously that person had not wanted whatever was being retrieved to come up. The sword had cut the door's opening circuits, and the unit was trapped trying to complete a function that could not possibly work.

Still, there was no reason for the sword to remain where it was. Tenchi gripped it and pulled it. Surprisingly he tumbled backwards as the blade slid out with ease. Unfortunately this was because time had not been kind to it. The once proud weapon (if the stories could be believed) had more holes in it than a bad action movie's plot.

Experimentally he swung the sword, it's blade whistling through the air strangely. As he did the doors to the storage below hissed open, distracting him. The damaged blade struck a hanging pole and shattered into a million pieces, sending shards streaking across the room.

"What the...?" Tenchi gasped, watching the claw descend into the room below. This was impossible. The door's circuit had been severed, it couldn't possibly have rebuilt itself.

With a clunk the arm stopped moving. There was a whirr and shortly the metal limb started up once more. As it emerged from the recess Tenchi could see that within it's clutches the claw contained a dark window.

An unnatural silence fell upon the room as the window's image of darkness started shifting. Twitching with tension nervous, Tenchi leant forward to gaze into the black. A black claw oozed from the surface reaching out to touch the terrified Tenchi's face.

Paralysed by fear Tenchi did nothing as the oozing claw cupped his check and slipped around behind his head. Then the darkness rippled and a grotesque red mask slid from the inky blackness. Glowing eyes glared from the demonic visage, getting closer and closer.

The sword hilt clutched tightly in Tenchi's hand crackled to life. Blue light flooded the room and the black figure howled in pain. With a cry of fright Tenchi finally broke free and scrambled away from the window. He crashed against the control panel and watched as the figure in the dark window oozed out of the window. Realising what he was leaning against Tenchi turned and started punching in commands.

The mechanical arm whirred to life, pushing the window back down into the storage room below. Howling, the web monster clawed at the edges of the floor as it's window sank back into the floor. Tenchi held his breath as the arm stopped, then started back up and sighed deeply when the arm returned empty and the doors hissed shut once more.

Tenchi sank to his knees. "I'm giving these keys back to grandfather and doing all the chores he wants."

*****

The buzzer sounded, signalling an end to the lesson and the beginning of lunch. Tenchi, like the other students in the class room, picked up his file folder and pushed it into his desk. He scrabbled around in the case for a few moments looking for his lunch before his hand closed around something. It felt wooden, with a regular lumpiness to it. Curious he pulled it out.

'Oh yeah, the sword hilt,' he thought. He'd seen nothing like it before, most of the hilts he'd seen used a metal pallet, not wood, and it appeared to have been woven together. The end of the hilt away from the where the blade had been, held three blood red jewels. He wondered briefly what had happened to the creature. 'Grandpa never mentioned anything, so I guess it's sealed away again.'

Suddenly a voice cut into his musings. "Hey Tenchi, what you got there?"

Tenchi looked up at his friend and reflexively wondered if he had been in an accident. It looked as if someone and punched the sprite in face, bruising his nose so badly that it had been discoloured. He suppressed the comment immediately however, because that was how his friend always looked.

"It's nothing," Tenchi muttered, putting the hilt away, "just a piece of old junk code."

"Oh," his friend said sagely. "So how was your holidays, meet any cute girls?"

Tenchi leaned back in his chair. "Are you kidding? I was stuck helping grandpa at the storage vaults all holidays and the only girls you get there are worms programs and phreaks."

"Oh ho, bet you found a nerdette in one of the vaults, and got it on with her," his friend joked crudely. Strangely everyone around them ignored the pair of gossiping males.

Tenchi joined in the laughter. "Very funny, making out with a weirdo." He stopped laughing suddenly as the image of the web creature flashed in his mind.

Seeing Tenchi's sudden change of mood his friend recoiled. "Don't tell me you actually did? That's disgusting!"

Tenchi's fist smashed into his face in answer. Thanks to his training and his anger this meant that his unlucky friend was knocked off his feet and managed to do two mid air flips before coming to a stop imbedded in a row of lockers.

"Jerk!" Tenchi snapped, and stormed out.

"Janitor!" someone yelled in following silence.

*****

Tenchi lay on his back staring up at the sky dome, when he had come up onto the roof it had been peaceful blue and with white clouds. However at some point he had drifted off-line and the system had gone off-line for the cycle. Through the canopy of the system he could see the web, data points twinkling in the inky blackness.

"Ah great, now I've missed my classes and everybody's gone home for the cycle," Tenchi groaned.

The soft ring of a bell caught Tenchi's attention. Sitting up the young sprite spotted a small black kitten sitting alone in one corner of the roof. Tenchi moved himself into a kneeling position. Mewing quietly the kitten ran towards him.

"How'd you get up here little one?" he asked, opening his arms as the small creature leapt into his arms in a jangle of noise. However part through the jump both kitten and sound faded out.

"What?" Tenchi asked aloud.

He was answered by a musical chuckle. Spinning around he located its source, a woman sitting atop an energy tower. Her bitmap silvery bitmap reflected the world about her, the lights of the city sliding along her skin as she moved. It looked strange, but then strange pretty much summed her up, from the tips of her spiky cyan hair, through her tight matching robes to the red shoes with the brass bells.

She cradled something against her cheek and smiled contentedly. "Ryoko," she said, and tossed the object to Tenchi.

He caught it, and looked down, it was a collar and a brass bell, just like the kitten had been wearing. "Huh?" he grunted, looking back up at the girl.

For the first time he saw her eyes. Golden and cat-like they gleamed in the soft light. "That's my name."

Tenchi had barely heard that last comment, for the gleam of the light had made a connection in his mind. "You! You're that monster from the vaults!" he blurted.

Ryoko gentle wrapped her arms around herself. "Seven hundred megacycles Tenchi, in that cold, dark place. All I could do was think. Think about what had been done to me, and the vengeance I would seek when I escaped."

Tenchi gulped, that was not good. "So what's that got to do with me? I didn't lock you up there! Some guy called Yosho did, and he died hundreds of megacycles ago."

Ryoko grinned maniacally at him and floated into the air, a globe of energy forming in her hand. "So maybe I just need to work off my anger!" she cried, hurling a bolt of energy at Tenchi.

The young sprite scrambled out of the way as the roof detonated, sending up a cloud of pixels. Cackling with joy the web creature fired more bolts, missing the running sprite by only a matter of pixels.

Breathing hard Tenchi turned hard and sprinted towards cover. A break in the explosions caused him to glance to one side, only to find Ryoko soaring along next to him, a grin on her face.

"You're going to have to run faster than that to escape me, Tenchi!" At this range Tenchi couldn't help but notice the fangs in her month.

Suddenly Tenchi swung about, dashing back the other. Ryoko, surprised by this turn about, continued forward, until she hit the side of a vent. Only a soft hum signalled the impact and Ryoko reappeared on the other side, unhurt by her trip through the solid object.

Her grin widened and another energy ball formed in her hand, this time however it elongated into a glowing shaft. However her pause had given Tenchi time to reach the door down into the building. Growling Ryoko threw the energy sword at the closing door.

The explosion sent Tenchi flying down the stairs into the deserted halls of the school. Scrabbling to his feet, Tenchi could heard the soft hum again and Ryoko appeared at the top of the stairs.

"Don't hurt yourself Tenchi, leave that to ME!" Ryoko cackled, throwing another blast.

In the confusion following another near miss Tenchi ducked into a nearby room, closing the door behind him. He sat, breath baited, leaning against the door. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Ryoko's silhouette slide past the window, then vanish with that same strange hum.

Tenchi sighed in relief, then for the first time noticed the strange sizzling sound. "What is that?" he mumbled and crept forward to peer further into the room. Much to his horror the room beyond was in a mess.

A section of the roof had caved in during the battle on the roof, and the rubble had fallen onto a collection of containers sitting on the desks below. The contents of the shattered containers now sizzled and crackled as they slowly oozed their way across the floor.

"Unstable energy," Tenchi gulped. "I'd better get out of here." He started towards the door.

"Tenchi," Ryoko's musical voice sang out.

Tenchi froze and scanned the room, looking for the web monster. Seeing no sign of her he decided his mind was playing tricks and continued towards the door.

"Tenchi."

This time Tenchi was sure he'd heard her, so turned to look closer. Moments later Ryoko's beautiful face melt through the display window. As Tenchi backed up against the wall behind him the rest of her quickly followed. Casually floating across the goo covered floor, she held out a hand and created another energy sword.

"I like you Tenchi, you're very good prey," she gave him a predatory grin. "But now I've come for you."

Tenchi turned to run for the door, but was halted by a chair slamming into the wall before him. Scared, he turned his back on Ryoko. "If I'd known I was going to quit file today, I wouldn't have processed all that homework while school was off-line."

A drop of energy formed on Ryoko's hair. 'If I'd known he was going to react like this, I wouldn't have played with him as much.'

"Wait a nano," Tenchi whispered to himself, "I might just have an idea." Without thinking it through he spun around and pointed out the window. "Oh my code, what's that?" There was a short pause. "I've just used the oldest hack in the readme." He turned slowly to see Ryoko's reaction, then almost collapsed in shock.

Ryoko was looking out the window, happily scanning the area beyond. "What? What is it? I don't want to miss anything!"

Surprised by her distraction (not to mention naivete) it took Tenchi a few nanoseconds to remember to make good his escape. He made it out into the hallway before Ryoko noticed.

"There's nothing there," Ryoko commented, turning back to face Tenchi, but the only thing she found was the broken chair. A low growl slipped from her throat as she clenched herself together. "I can't believe I fell for that! He's going to pay!" Energy crackled about her, striking out at objects around her.

The sudden explosion of the unstable energy tore out the wall and propelled Tenchi down the hall. He bounced and skidded to a halt, then scrambled to his feet. Facing the wall of blazing light he sadly looked down. "No one could have survived that tear. Pity, she was kinda cute." He clapped his hands together.

Like death itself a dark shadow loomed out of the crackling light. "My code, she's alive!" Tenchi quickly dove down the corridor and around the corner as Ryoko emerged from the inferno.

"That is NO way to treat a LADY!" Ryoko screamed, and shot off down the corridor.

Slowly Tenchi started moving down the stairs as the web creature grew closer and closer. Lucky for him as Ryoko raced passed a mirror her vanity got the better of her and she had to pull back and examine herself. Much to her horror she found gazing back slightly burnt woman.

"Look at my bitmap!" She immediately started primping and cleaning herself.

Tenchi sighed and slid down the stairs to the lower floor.

*****

Darkness and silence filled Tenchi's homeroom. Quietly the boy sprite wove through the desks headed for his desk. He slid behind it and, trying to make as little noise as possible, started transferring files to his PDA. Once that was completed he picked up his bag and dropped the thin device in.

Meanwhile up in the hallway Ryoko finished brushing the soot off her bitmap. She straightened her clothes then smiled at herself in the mirror. "You are one beautiful web creature." She gave herself a grin. "Let's go." She drifted backs and faded out as she approached the wall.

Back downstairs Tenchi almost shot through the roof when the klaxons exploded to life. He glanced at the source of the noise, a small flashing light on the wall. "Oh, just the interface integrity alarm." He cocked his head to one side. "Of course half the building has to be unstable before it goes off," he commented casually. The small light reminded him of something. "The flash memory module on her wrist! It contains her system hacking algorithms! If I can remove it, she'll be powerless!" Tenchi grinned crazily. "Yes, I can beat her! It's easy!" he cried.

Outside Ryoko heard him with her sharp hearing. "You think so, huh?!" She gathered another ball of energy and released it at the room Tenchi was in.

Tenchi, hearing her retort, just had time to scramble out the window before the room exploded behind him. He dashed across the courtyard, frantically glancing behind him, searching for signs of pursuit. He kept going until his head collided with Ryoko's soft bosom.

Tenchi bounced back and collapsed backwards, landing on his butt. He looked up in horror at the web creature.

Ryoko gave him a predator's grin as her sword formed. "It's been a nice game Tenchi, but now the end has come." She slashed forward slicing through the air.

Instinctively Tenchi threw his bag up before him, trying to block the blow. A flash of blue light illuminated the shocked faces of the pairs as the bag slid in half. Ryoko back-pedalled as the bag disintegrated in a column of energy.

The sword hilt Tenchi had found in the data storage hovered in the air before him. "Wow," he muttered, reaching out and plucking the sword from the air. Experimentally he swung the hilt, hoping for something to happen. It didn't.

Growling Ryoko stepped forward. Unfortunately her foot fell upon a rake someone had carelessly lying on the ground, sending it arcing up towards her face. Angrily she smashed it out the way.

At the same moment a energy blade sprung out from the Tenchi's hilt sword. Entirely of it's own violation the sword dragged him forward, slashing clumsily through the air. Amazingly the sizzling energy cleaved right through Ryoko's outstretched arm, right behind the memory module. The severed hand dropped away, letting the small round module bounch a couple of times before exploding in a ball of flames.

Tenchi and Ryoko looked at each other, surprise showing on their faces. Ryoko pulled back and shrugged despondently. "Defeated again, story of my life." She waved her stump about as she spoke.

"Ah," Tenchi pointed at her arm, "sorry about that, I mean it wasn't me, it the was sword, you know, it had a mind of it's own."

"Huh?" Ryoko was confused for a moment, then noticed her glowing stump. "Oh, that." She smiled brightly and picked up the severed hand. Waving it with a flare she held it against the stump for a moment then released it. Tenchi held his breath for a moment, until Ryoko waved her newly healed hand at him.

"Amazing." Tenchi clapped in awe as Ryoko performed a deep bow and sunk slowly in the ground. He stood there, watching the spot into which she had vanished for a few nanoseconds before the building behind exploded into a ball of flickering light. The wail of distant sirens reached his ears.

"I'd better get out of here before I get into real trouble."

*****

Sighing, Tenchi slipped through the stairwell door and up the stairs. Luckily no one had spotted him leaving the school and his father hadn't heard him come in. Still, it was nice to get home, away from the insanity that had followed him from the data vault.

He tromped up the stairs to the door to his room and thumbed the button to open his door. Hissing, the metal slid away, revealing his perfectly ordinary room, complete with his ordinary bed.

"What a long cycle," Tenchi muttered, ignoring the fact that he had slept through half of it. As he warily trudged across the room he dropped his bag, then flopped onto the bed.

Something felt wrong, and it only took the young sprite a couple of nanoseconds to realise that he was lying atop more than just a mattress and sheets. In fact not something, but someone. A sinking feeling of dread filled him as he leapt to his feet. Quickly he yanked the covers off the lump in his bed, revealing a slumbering Ryoko.

Mumbling she rolled over as she slept, her clothes shifting to reveal what was supposed to be hidden within. Her cat eyes cracked open and she gave him a sated smile. "Welcome home Tenchi," she purred.

Tenchi rolled his eyes and did the only thing he could think of. He prayed.


	3. v 2,1,3

Wild Boot: The Net Games

By David Farr

Tenchi Muyo is copyright of AIC : Pioneer LDC, INC. ReBoot is the property of Mainframe. Ranma 1/2 is copyrighted by Rumiko Takahashi/Shogakukan,Inc. All are used here respectfully for the purposes of fanfiction. This story may be redistributed only if unchanged and no fee is charged.

*****

v 2.1.3: Codesmith Cats

*****

The User was a kid, dressed in a blue jacket, white shirt and jeans. His red cap had been pulled around so that the rim covered the back of his neck. The pack on his contained five red and white pokeballs, four of which contained fainted Pokemon, defeated by his opponent and the previous two.

His opponent wore the white baseball but unlike the user her cap still shaded her lilac face. She smiled, baring her fangs, at the scene before them. Her Tangela, a pokemon that appeared to be little more than a collection of vines, stood not far from an exhausted looking sphere.

"Looks like your Voltorb is outta power honey," the Trainer smirked. "This one's gonna be a piece a cake."

The User glared at her. "Voltorb, struggle!"

Wearily the sphere rocked a few times and then rolled at the Tangela. Hurt and too slow, the plant pokemon was struck, and the pair both collapsed to the ground, their eyes spinning.

"Tangela return!" Ukyo yelled, holding an open pokeball in a silver metallic hand. In a flash of red light the pokemon shot back into the sphere, which then shrunk. She dropped the ball into her pouch and retrieved her final ball. Pausing, she glanced over at her cheering section.

Shampoo stood watching her, obviously not too happy about having been defeated. She had rebooted into a skimpy outfit and had a bunch of pokeballs dangling from her ponytails. Next to her stood RyoGA. The game sprite was wearing a brown and yellow striped jersey and wading pants. In one hand he held a fishing pole, the other held a miniaturised pokeball.

It was to the final member of the group that Ukyo turned her attention. Ranma had rebooted as a sinister looking man in black and his three Pokemon still awaited their chance to battle the User.

"Stay or go?!" Ukyo cried.

Ranma lifted his hand to his Icon and tapped it, changing it from the yellow, white and blue triangle of a game sprite to the black and gold badge of a guardian. "Stay. He's only got one more, and if for some reason you can't defeat that he still has to fight me."

As one Ukyo, Shampoo and RyoGA reached up and altered their own Icons. They'd all done it enough times to trust Ranma's judgement.

Ukyo turned back to her battle. She threw the pokeball, which split open, spewing forth red light. "Pikachu, I choose you!" The light formed into a small yellow and brown rodent standing on it's hind legs. It's jagged tail made it cute, Ukyo had to admit that, but it was also dangerous, capable of discharging bolts of lightning and moving at quickly to the attack.

The User recalled his Voltorb and flourished out his final pokeball. "Go! Squirtle!" In a flash a strange blue turtle appeared between the Pikachu and the User. It was all Ukyo could do to keep from laughing, the others didn't bother, falling to the ground and clutching their sides in mirth.

"A Squirtle against a Pikachu?" Ranma gasped. "That's gonna be murder!"

Ukyo shook her head, unable to suppress a grin. "Okay Pikachu, let's finish this in a hurry. Thunderbolt!"

The small rodent leapt into the air, lightning playing about it's body. "PIKA!" With an ear splitting crash electricity jumped from the small pokemon and struck the Squirtle. The poor water pokemon flashed for a few moments before collapsing to the ground, a wisp of steam rising from its body.

Ukyo threw out her hand holding the pokeball. "PIKACHU, RETURN!" In a red flash the small pokemon vanished. At the same moment Shampoo, RyoGA and Ranma each tossed one of their own pokeballs.

"Game Over," announced a deep male voice.

Ukyo caught the three spheres, which joined Pikachu's in her metal fist.

*****

Ranma: We live in the games

Wandering from systems to system,

Searching for what we lost.

Home.

*****

v 2.1.3: Codesmith Cats

*****

A sea of mirrored skyscrapers surrounded the building on which the four gamers stood. Above them the sky dome shifted from a dingy purple to a dirty grey as the game cube vanished. The towers cast shadows on those unfortunate enough to be below, blocking out much of the light. Sounds wafted up from the street level, the impatient honk of vehicles, the roar of engines. Strangely no hover cars graced the air.

"Is not Mainframe," Shampoo announced turning to face the others.

RyoGA snorted. "No surprise there."

"It will be one cycle," Ranma's comment was half promise - half comfort, although whether for himself or the others none could tell. Turning away he found Ukyo still concentrating on her clenched metal fist.

When they lost that game they had lost a lot. Their home for one. Ukyo's right arm, Shampoo's right eye, both things that could be and had been replaced. They'd been lucky, in a way, the game had deposited them in a system whose inhabitants were well versed in creating prosthetic code. Ranma's own lose was much more total, more personal, more... Without thinking Ranma's hand went to massage the empty spot on his left forearm, where his closest friend should have rested.

Ukyo's cyber-arm was more than just a replacement limb. Using the rescued sprites as guinea pigs, those miracle workers had installed special codes into Ukyo's arm and Shampoo's eye. Now the hacker could pull small objects from the games, nothing that could not fit in the palm of her hand, but at least she didn't have to worry about stabilising it. Shampoo on the other hand, had a complex scanner, which also linked into the gun that hovered at her hip.

"Whatcha got Ucchan?" Ranma asked.

Slowly Ukyo unrolled her right hand, revealing the four marbles inside. "Let's see, shall we?" She held up one in her left hand and squinted at it. "Well, my Pikachu made it." She exchanged it for a second pokeball. "Hmm, Shampoo's Vulpix, cute and dangerous, I like, good choice."

"Thank you," Shampoo returned. She had moved to one edge of the roof and was squinting out across the city through her cyber-eye.

Ukyo gazed at the third one. "What's this, a Starmie? Another good choice."

"That was mine," RyoGA volunteered.

"Then this last one is Ranma's," Ukyo smiled. "Let's see." She paused then looked at Ranma in surprise. "A Pidgeot, wow."

Ranma shrugged. "It was either that, a Wigglytuff or a Mewoth, and like crash was I giving you a cat."

"Always knew you were a bird-brain." RyoGA slapped him on the back.

Ranma gazed at him through half closed eyes. "Geeze, thanks."

*****

"Wait up Rally!" Minnie-May stopped, gasping. She raised her arm and wiped drops of liquid energy perspiration from her green bitmap. Normally she would not be running, her short legs couldn't carry her as quickly and she didn't carry a gun like her bounty-hunting partner, but Rally did need backup, especially with him!

Up ahead her friend vaulted up the stairs, taking them two at a time. In her hand she carried her favourite piece, the CZ-75, too her mind the best handgun ever. And for her prey, she needed the best. This sprite was more than a bounty, it was personal.

"GRAY YOU SPAMMER!" Rally Vincent screamed, smashing open the door with her shoulder. The lobby was empty, but out of the corner of her eye she saw the stairwell door swinging closed.

"Got you," she hissed, and dived for the door. Gray, he'd been given that nickname for his grey bitmap, was a cunning sprite, and extremely dangerous. None knew that better than Rally. He'd threatened Rally once before, and it was only with luck and help from her friends that she had been able to beat him.

Gray's footsteps echoed in the stairwell. He was still in there and going up like Microsoft itself was after him. Rally took to the stairs, pacing herself as best she could. She was already halfway up the building when she heard the ground door open again and Minnie-May complain about the steps.

It seemed like only moments before she burst onto the roof and snapped into position. Gray was there, and unsurprisingly he'd found himself another hostage, a small gun pointed at her head. It wasn't a gun though, it was the encryptor, a device that could make a sprites codes non-functional and inaccessible. Useful device for ransoms, you could send back the victim and they'd have to pay for the encryption key.

The woman was strange, Rally's sharp eye took that in quickly as she kept her gun fixed on the pair. Lilac skin and burning red hair, unusual enough in itself, but one arm was metallic and she appeared to be dressed in some kind of tight combat fatigues. She looked like a fighter, in fact Rally could see that she held something in one hand. If it had been Minnie-May, Rally would have guessed explosives.

A electronic whine from beside Rally caused her to realise that the woman wasn't alone on the roof. A little further away Rally could hear the crackle of energy.

"Shampoo, RyoGA, don't," the voice was strong, confident, male, "you might hurt Ucchan." A fourth person, neither the one with the whine nor the crackle, he was off to the right.

"That's right!" Gray sneered. He looked nervous, unusual for him Rally realised. The woman's friends must have been impressive. "We don't want anyone else hurt, do we Rally? Now we will all put down our weapons and let me past. Oh and tell that guy over there to stop glowing, he's making me nervous."

It took a lot of effort for Rally not to look. How could anyone be glowing? "It's an encryptor," she called to whoever else was on the roof. "He's got the key hidden somewhere."

"And you need him and it for some reason." The voice hazarded. "RyoGA, power down, one of your energy blasts will delete him."

The crackling of energy diminished, then stopped. "So what's the plan wise leader?" the one called RyoGA inquired sarcastically.

"Shampoo say we shoot him and hope he process long enough to tell hiding place of key." A female voice, cute, but hard, from right next to Rally. She was holding whatever was whining.

"Hey! I'm standing right here!" Gray exclaimed, shifting uneasily.

The woman, Ucchan, rolled her eyes dramatically and sighed. "For once I agree with the amazon. If he gets me, hey, bad luck, otherwise I can hack the key for the lady with the gun."

"Not an option," Rally interjected. "He's wanted alive, the CPUs don't like sprites being deleted unless really necessary."

"You no call gun held to head necessary?" the one standing next to Rally asked incredulously.

Rally smiled. "Yeah, but it's spamming hard to prove."

"Crash this," Gray shoved the small device into the woman's neck, and a flash of energy shot across her body. Her hand spasmed, letting four small marbles fall to the ground. As Ucchan fell Gray leapt backwards over the edge.

As Gray disappeared from view two if the others materialised in Rally's view. One of the men, a blue sprite in blue armour, caught the Ucchan before she hit the floor. The other was the female Rally had been standing next to. She suddenly appeared on the edge of the roof, a strange and futuristic gun pointed downwards.

"Gun, target lock." Shampoo spat, and the weapon discharged a red pulse from above the barrel. "Got him!" she declared.

Rally finally acted, she dashed across the roof to look over the edge. Below she saw Gray land in a dumpster, then climb out and run off. "Spam! He got away!"

The blue woman looked at Rally. "Sinister-grey-sprite no get away from Shampoo, she able to track him anywhere in system."

Rally took in the group for first time. This woman, Shampoo, looked as hard as the woman called Ucchan. She was cute, but her face appeared serious, and the yellow orb glaring out from one eye socket made Rally shudder. Her clothing had an unusual cut, robes of some kind, not combat ware, but serviceable never the less. The strange weapon she carried had been absently returned to her hip, but nothing held it there.

The young man holding the encrypted girl, almost effortlessly to all appearances, had a noble bearing to his stance, not touched by the steel that so characterised his two female companions. His outfit was an armoured uniform of some kind, one unknown to Rally. As he started moving gracefully, flowing in fact, Rally could just see that he was as, if not more, deadly than Shampoo.

Finally the sprite Gray had said was glowing stood stoically, regarding her as she was him. Again a rare skin colour, orange, but at least he wore normal clothes, although the pack topped by a massive parasol was unusual. If what had been said during the battle was any indication, then this one was perhaps the most dangerous.

"Name's Ranma Saotome," the apparent leader said. "I'd offer to shake your hand, but my arms are full." He gave her a quirky smile. "That's Shampoo with the gun, and RyoGA standing over there. This is Ukyo."

It was Rally's turn to feel under the microscope as Ranma sized her up. What Ranma saw was a system sprite, not that much different from Akane. She had the same determined look on her green face that Mainframe's Defender often had. The comparison brought back the pain of loss.

Minnie-May chose that moment to make her appearance. She pushed open the door, gasping for breath. It took only a moment for her to take in the situation. "He got away, Rally?" she inquired.

"Only for the moment," Rally replied. She looked at Ranma. "I'm Rally Vincent, a bounty hunter in this system, and she's my partner, May Hopkins."

"Great, is there somewhere Ukyo can be looked after while we hunt down this grey guy?" Ranma inquired, starting towards the door down. "RyoGA, grab the pokeballs would you?"

Grumbling the game sprite bent down to pick up the small spheres.

Rally stepped in front of him. "Now wait a minute, who do you think you are? You can't just hunt down Gray!"

A whine in Rally's ear made her suddenly aware of Shampoo's presence. "You no stop Ranma," she whispered.

"Put it down Shampoo." Ranma returned his gaze to Rally. "Look, either you help or hinder us, your choice. Either way we're gonna get that key then catch the next game to another system."

"Wow, tough guy," Minnie-May whistled.

"Yeah, pain in the bitmap too," Rally commented. "Wait a nano, catch a game? ANOTHER SYSTEM?" She turned to hurry after Ranma and his friends.

*****

"So let me get this straight. They use the games as vehicles to move between systems?" The speaker was Roy, Rally's good friend and a detective with the CPUs. Thankfully that meant he didn't have to wear one of those green and gold uniforms, or Rally would never have been able to have a serious conversation with him. Just the image of the serious dour faced sprite dressed like that sent Rally into a fit of giggles.

Rally leant against the hospital corridor wall, arms crossed. "That's what they said." She shrugged.

Roy started pacing across the room. "Come on Rally, that's random talk, there are no systems other than Chicago!"

She glanced meaningfully towards the room where the strange sprites were settling in their friend. "If you can come up with a better explanation for them, your welcome to believe it, but I'm taking them at face value for the moment. It's probably safer."

Roy snorted. "And you're going along with them? Hunting down Gray?"

"It'd be best. I seriously doubt we want to try and stop them, but at least I can keep them from doing anything stupid."

"You realise that anything they do will be on your head," Roy pointed out.

"Excuse me," RyoGA interjected from the doorway, "we can hear every word you're saying and you're disturbing the troops." He vanished back inside.

Rally and Roy shared a startled glance, then dashed to the door.

The hospital room was the same one that housed Gray's other victim, a young girl who he was ransoming with the encryption key. Roy and the CPUs had decided to place her here under guard and so it seemed the perfect place to put Ukyo. What they hadn't expected was for the travellers to supply their own guards.

A large bird sat on the end of the lilac sprite's bed. It was like nothing either of the sprites had seen before, large red and gold feathers sprouting from above the eyes and sweeping down the length of its powerful body. It turned fearsome eyes on the pair. "Pidgeot!"

"Pika pika! CHU!" Roy and Rally both looked down to find a yellow and brown rodent standing in front of them. It was cute, especially the way it held a stick pointed at them like a gun. However the crackling energy about the two brown spots on its cheeks showed just how dangerous it was.

With a series of "Hup"s a third guard leapt out from behind the bed. It looked like someone had taken two five pointed stars and attached them, then placed a beautiful gem in the centre just to make a fashion statement.

Finally curled up on the bed next to the slumbering Ukyo lay a beautiful red fox-like creature. Four tails swished casually through the air as it watched the newcomers with two black pearl eyes. It stretched and yawned, then sat on its haunches facing them. "Vulpix," it hissed.

"Hey, calm down gang, these are friends," Ranma walked over to the bed and sat down, stroking the Vulpix. He looked up at the two sprites in the doorway. "We thought we'd leave them here to look after her."

The Starmie vanished back behind the bed and Pikachu started marching back and forth across the room, its stick resting on its shoulder. Under Ranma's care Vulpix settled down once more while Pidgeot started scanning the room.

Shampoo stepped in front of the bird and looked at it. "Shampoo thought Pidgeot bigger."

Ranma shrugged. "Probably got shrunk when Ucchan pulled it from the game."

"Pidgeot!" The bird glared angrily at Ranma.

He threw up his hands in defence. "Hey, not my fault!"

"Ot." It humphed.

Giving up on the Pokemon Ranma stood and walked over to Rally. "So, we ready to leave yet?"

Roy looked at the kid. Okay, so he was as tall as Rally, and looked extremely serious, but he was, never the less, a kid. His friends weren't much better. "Are you sure you want to do this? Gray has deleted a lot of people."

A flat stare was fixed on Roy. "All the more reason to do it. My code is to mend and defend, I'm naturally a predator when it comes to his type." Ranma sounded like confidence personified.

"Come on, May's waiting in the car downstairs." Rally turned, leaving Roy to face Ranma.

"Well, have you got a problem with me working on this?" the youth challenged.

"We want him alive, and preferably as unfragmented as possible."

Ranma pushed past him. "You have my word of honor."

RyoGA crossed the room and squeezes past the CPU without a comment. He was followed shortly by Shampoo, who paused only to poke her tongue out at him before bouncing off down corridor after the others.

*****

Unfortunately Rally's Cobra wasn't built to hold five people. Since Shampoo needed to be in the front of the small car, that left May squeezed tight in between Ranma and RyoGA.

As Rally directed the Cobra up out of the hospital's sub-level garage Shampoo activated Gun's tracking mode. "Is to right," she directed.

"Whose elbow is that in my stomach?" Ranma asked from the back seat.

"I think it's my knee," answered May.

"Shampoo, mind if I ask you a question?" Rally slowly spun the wheel, merging with the traffic on the busy road.

"Sure, she no mind," Shampoo watched Gun closely. "Keep straight."

"Hey RyoGA, you might want to keep your head a little lower," May commented.

"Why?" In answer the car jumped suddenly as Rally stopped for a red light. THAWK!

"That must have hurt."

Rally ignored the conversation in the back. "Well, I was wondering why do you travel so much? I mean, it can't be easy, jumping from system to system all the time."

"It okay, so long as Shampoo with Ranma, she no care." The Amazon sighed.

"Don't worry, RyoGA's bitmap is very dense," Ranma quipped to May.

"RAAANNNMMAAA!" RyoGA growled.

Rally wished she could Shampoo's face, it would have told her megabits. "You care for him that much?"

"It no important." Gun started turning. "Is to left a distance. Ranma is reason we all keep going, he no give up." She leaned to the side as Rally took the turn at speed.

The sounds of battle from the back totally failed to affect the pair in the front seat. "So what keeps Ranma going?"

"He feel responsible for Mainframe, is part of Guardian code. Ranma no able to give up so long is possibility of success. Is part what makes Shampoo love him."

"WOULD YOU TWO PLEASE STOP FIGHTING OVER ME?!" May screamed suddenly. The punches stopped.

"Sorry," both Ranma and RyoGA sounded like young sprites caught stealing quantum fruit from an orchard. There was a short pause in the back seat.

Rally continued her talk with Shampoo. "So he's looking for home?"

"Yes, Ranma take responsibility very serious," Shampoo replied.

From the tone of her voice Rally knew that wasn't all, but that the truth hurt the other sprite. "How much further?" she inquired, changing the subject.

"Not far, is just another few blocks ahead and up ten levels." The Gun was now pointing up and to the side at an angle.

"Then we'd better park and continue on foot."

"Ah, how did we get in this position?" Ranma was perplexed.

"I don't know, but I'd have thought it to be impossible," volunteered RyoGA.

"Nope, I been like this a couple of times," May interjected. "Of course I was wearing a lot less at the time," she added thoughtfully.

"I didn't wanna know that," Ranma commented.

*****

Shampoo leaned against the corner of building and squinted upwards. It was a rundown part of the system, many of the windows looking out onto the street were dark with power loss behind the panels covering them. Graffiti covered walls, touting everything from "M$ sux" to "Duke wasn't here."

Gray's hideout was an apartment building, probably pack full of the poor that this system seemed to generate. Thankfully this meant that there were two ways up the building, the stairs inside and an escape outside.

"So what's the plan?" Ranma asked, turning to Rally.

She blinked in surprise as the other three stared in shock at Ranma. "What? You're asking me?"

Ranma shrugged. "This is your speciality, not ours. Normally we confront problems head on."

"Unless it's a game," RyoGA interjected.

"Hmm, well, if we could just be sure what he was doing in there..." Rally stepped out of cover and glanced up. Thankfully Gray hadn't chosen that moment to look out.

"Sinister-grey-sprite sitting watching Television," Shampoo declared. "Pity is not Mike, then we just wait for him to run out screaming." Ranma and RyoGA both chuckled.

"How can you be sure?" Rally inquired of the amazon.

"Mike is very annoying, no one stand listening him long."

Rally stared at her through half-closed eyes. "That's not what I meant."

Shampoo pointed at her cyber-eye. "Remote visuals. Is ability of targeter. Very useful."

Rally nodded and turned to RyoGA. "Can one of those blasts of yours blow in a wall."

"And a good deal more," RyoGA replied. Then he grinned at her. "I've got something better."

"Excellent," Rally looked up at the apartment again. "Shampoo, May and I will go up the inside. You two go up the escape. Give us twenty nanos to get into position, then May blows the door and RyoGA does his thing with the wall. Hopefully we'll catch Grey with his guard down."

"I see key!" Shampoo exclaimed suddenly. "Is on table next to him!"

Rally nodded. "Hopefully that's the right one, but it may not be, so we keep him alive."

"I'll call Roy the moment the door blows, just in case," volunteered May.

"Everyone okay with that?" A series of nods answered Rally. "Right, fifty nanos from now."

*****

The dingy hall of the building was everything Rally expected. More graffiti, broken light panels and enough rubbish to fill a truck. Gray's apartment was one of the corner ones facing onto the street. According to Shampoo he hadn't moved except to drink from a can. That made Rally feel good, he probably believed himself safe for at least a little longer, few of Rally's informants could have found him so quickly.

Shampoo and she took up positions on either side of the door while May the bomb freak played with her explosives on the door. The pair watched as May placed three larger wads on door, then added a group of smaller charges on the door. Finally the small sprite stuck a bunch of detonators into the explosives and backed off.

"Count me down someone," May whispered urgently.

Shampoo nodded acknowledgement and paused. The silence deeped for what seemed an eternity. "Is almost time. 5... 4..."

*****

RyoGA stood and pulled back his arm. A single finger pointed towards the wall before him.

"3... 2... 1..." Ranma counted.

"BAKUSAI TENKETSU!"

*****

Grey wasn't too surprised when the door exploded in. He was too busy being shocked by the wall crushing his TV. Despite that he was ready for Rally and her friends.

His hand flew to the gun resting at his side. Two sets of targets presented themselves. Instinct told him to go for the ones in front of him coming through the newly formed hole in the wall, strategically they were more likely a rouse and the real danger was coming through the door. All of this he ignored, instead the gun swung to point at the cylinder resting on the table.

Shampoo and Rally threw themselves round, both falling into wide positions, guns outstretched before them. They watched as Ranma and RyoGA blurred from the fading explosion on the opposite side of the room, then froze at points either side of the hole in the wall.

For nanoseconds nothing happened, the four hunters watched as Gray aimed his weapon at the key. None of them dared move.

"Another step and I delete it," Gray growled, watching all of them from the corners of his eyes.

"Delete it and quit file," Ranma returned simply. "It's the only thing keeping you processing."

"Right, like you're going to shoot me."

"Yes."

"Give it up Gray, you can't win!" Rally yelled. "These guys are only here to save their friend!"

Gray didn't answer but Rally noticed his left hand twitch. It took her only a moment to realise that he was about to use one of her own tricks. She squeezed the trigger.

There was an thunderous explosion and energy splattered across the room. Gray screamed in pain, and clutched at end of his arm, a small hold out pistol falling from his left sleeve. It joined the remains of Gray's other gun and right hand on the floor.

"Spam," Shampoo gasped, staring in disbelief.

In the silence after the explosion May's voice carried in from the hall. "You may want to add an ambulance to that order Roy."

*****

"Your kidding sugah, she really blew his hand off?" Ukyo stood, adjusting her clothes.

Ranma nodded. "Apparently he used explosive rounds and when she shot the gun, intending to knock him off balance so he wouldn't shoot me or RyoGA, she set them off. His gun went up in a decent ball of energy and took his hand with it."

"So now he's some kinda one armed bandit?" Ukyo asked, cracking a smile.

Ranma groaned. "That was a terrible pun."

"Thank ya honey."

"Come on, Rally's offered to drive us to the next Game when it falls." Ranma turned to head towards the hospital room's door.

"Wait a sec Ranma-honey." Ukyo pulled out one of her pokeballs and expanded it. "Pikachu honey, its time to go."

The small yellow and brown rodent hopped up on the bed and gave her a pathetic look, its ears drooping. "Pika?!"

"Sorry, got ta put ya away. Ya just can't survive in the games."

Pikachu nodded saddly.

"Pikachu! Return!" At Ukyo's order the pokeball cracked open and Pikachu vanished into the ball with a flash. She turned and gave Ranma a smile that hid her unease.

"I wonder if we could use one of those things on another type of sprite?" Ranma mused as the pair walked out.

*****

"Game Over." The cube shot back up into the sky above Chicago, leaving a deserted area of the city. It was only a few moments before the traffic started flowing again.

"Do you think we'll see them again?" May asked Rally, staring up at the cloudy sky.

"Somehow, I think so," her friend answered.


	4. v 2,2,1

Wild Boot: The Net Games

By David Farr

Tenchi Muyo is copyright of AIC : Pioneer LDC, INC. ReBoot is the property of Mainframe. Ranma 1/2 is copyrighted by Rumiko Takahashi/Shogakukan,Inc. All are used here respectfully for the purposes of fanfiction. This story may be redistributed only if unchanged and no fee is charged.

*****

Akane: I protect Mainframe,

From Viruses, Corruption and Games,

My Code,

To Mend and Defend,

For I am a Guardian,

Alone in my fight.

*****

v 2.2.1: Cyber Senshi

*****

Ribbed walls arced above the platform, meeting at a point deep in the darkness. Beneath, sitting alone atop her demonic throne was the virus Kodachi, her clawed hands hovering in the air either side of a glowing mirror. She watched as her brother, the large navy blue virus named Kuno, faced off against Nabiki Tendo. Her cackling laughter exploded as Akane and her bug-like Fuchikoma defeated him.

" I can never get enough of that scene," she waved her hand again and the sequence repeated in the mirror. "Oh, I tire of this." Another wave caused the image to dissolve into static. "MR TURTLE!"

The strange floating triangle that Kodachi kept as a pet appeared, floating in the air not far away. It snapped its jaws a few times at her.

"Ah, there you are. What took you so long?" Kodachi continued to wave her hands on either side of the mirror. "How is my latest project coming?"

Mr Turtle snapped a few times in answer, then quickly flew through the air, leaving a glowing green tick floating in the air.

"Excellent. Now those fools will PAY for taking my darling Ranma away from me!" The random virus threw her head back and let her best evil laugh roll across the room.

*****

"Achoo!" Akane rubbed her nose and looked about. The Nekohanten, still a place to hang out if despite the loss of Shampoo, was packed with binomes. She was getting used to being the focus of attention again, but wished that they weren't all so obvious about it. Just a single sneeze had caused everyone in the room to stop and watch her, concern written on their faces.

Sighing, Mainframe's new Guardian turned to look out the window. Her trusty Fuchikoma was sitting in the parking lot, too big to make it through the doorway without effort. Unsurprised, she saw that it had drawn a crowd as well, although it seemed to enjoying the attention and was going through a null juggling routine for a group of kids.

"You sneezed ma'am?" Mousse drawled, gliding up to her booth.

"I'M FINE!" Akane snapped turning to glare at the file server.

Mousse adjusted his glasses and looked at her. "I wasn't saying you weren't. I was however inquiring what you wanted."

"For Ranma to still be here doing this," Akane murmured, turning back to gaze out the window.

"I'm sorry, I believe we're out of that, would you like something else," he deadpanned.

Akane waved at him irritably. "Oh, just the usual."

Fed up, Mousse placed his hands on either side of his box. "Akane, you change your order almost every cycle. You don't have a usual."

"THEN ANYTHING!" she raged.

Shrugging, Mousse pulled out a notepad and a pen. "Yes, ma'am. That's one energy sea squid platter, one bowl of Quantum Miso soup and a herb electron tea."

Akane dropped back into her depression. "That's fine."

Mousse shrugged and zipped off.

*****

Repairs to the system had been costly, and resources were going to be scarce for a long while. Coupled with Mainframe's isolation from the net that meant that Nabiki could only predict hard times for the sprites and binomes of the system. The win against Kuno, especially Akane's sudden return to strength, had boosted morale, but still, many of the more influential citizens were starting to gather their assets in preparation for the coming storm.

Thus it fell to Nabiki to convince those hoarding needed data and energy to give their aid for the sake of the system. Convince not beg, for Nabiki never begged.

"Well Mr Gates, the way I see it, we have only two options," Nabiki crossed her arms and stared down at the nerdy little zero before her. "Either you invest in the repair schedule now, in hopes of a rise in business and some good PR or we wait until the situation is so bad that the has to step in and start requisitioning what she needs. I don't know about you, but I don't want to face a displeased Kasumi."

Mr Gates swallowed visibly. "Surely it won't come to that."

"Well, no, it may not, but if it does, well... let's just say I made no secret of the reason I came to see you."

"Th-that's blackmail!" Mr Gates accused.

Smirking Nabiki leaned down to stare into the binomes eyes. "I prefer to call it bargaining from a position of power."

"Alright, give me the list and I'll get onto it," Mr Gates sighed. He held out his hand.

Nabiki pulled a PADD out from her coat and started to give it to the binome. Then she stopped. The PAD fell to ground as Nabiki spun and stared out across the city. She could feel it... something... wrong.

*****

The spoon clinked off the side of the bowl again, then circled around, continuing to mix the now cold broth. Akane stared at it unseeing, her mind so deeply in her problems that she had failed to notice her tea get up and sneak away some time before.

High-pitched screaming shattered her brooding, snapping her attention to the parking lot. Thankfully the sound came not from binomes, but from the nulls clutched tightly, too tightly, in the Fuchikoma's claw-like manipulators. The red bug mecha was staring across out the city, its optics fixed on some distant point. Akane knew what was in that direction, one of the two most feared places in Mainframe.

Then she felt it too.

*****

Kasumi muttered an oath, and was instantly glad there was no body nearby to hear it. The sudden feeling had shocked her, causing her to want to sit up and take a look. That was the reason for curse. Actually no, the reason for her curse was when she had tried to sit up she had been painfully reminded that she was lying under the body of a massive tank.

She shoved herself out, rolling free on the back of the trolley, and leapt to her feet. With uncharacteristic haste she ran to the workstation of her lab and started tapping in codes. After a few seconds, displays started appearing, overlaying on each other only slightly slower than she could read them.

"Oh my," she said mildly, "I'd better get everyone together."

*****

Mike could feel it coming.

It was getting closer, and it was big!

This was going to be the worse one yet.

They'd never faced anything like this before!

"BAAAAARRRRRRPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!" Mike covered his speaker with a hand. "Ecshuse me."

Laughter filled the bar, and another can of Pulselager was shoved in front of him. "Hey Mike that was a killer burp, have another on me!"

"No shhanks, I gotta go ta work," he got up and stumbled out of the bar, leaving behind a drunken pile of zero binomes.

*****

As has been discussed before the sector known as Floating Point Park was by far the prettiest part of Mainframe. It was here that families came to enjoy picnics and couples went for romantic walks. At almost any time in a cycle you'd be able to watch as one and zero binomes wandered through the trees and sculptures. Here and there children played Viruses and Guardians or tried to catch the fountain's statue moving.

It was into this scene of beauty and innocence that the latest creation of Kodachi, Queen of Chaos stepped, its short shadow darkening the ground as it ominously approached a group of playing children. The leader of the group, wearing what could possibly have been a Guardian Uniform, but looked more like a pair of pyjamas, turned to the newcomer.

"What do you want?" the young zero binome demanded.

"Can I play too?" the strange sprite gushed, clasping her hands before her.

The pretend Guardian looked her over. She was a humanoid sprite, like the Tendos, only much younger, probably only oh-one. A loose fitting yellow dress covered her strange grey bitmap and long dark brown hair flowed down to her waist. Still she seemed like the outgoing type. "Sure, what side do you want to be on?" he asked.

"How about I play..." she whipped out a small coin, holding it between her middle and index fingers, "VIRUS! Happo Five-YEN SATSU!" Light collected into the hole in the centre of the coin, and yellow light filled the area about the children.

"Delinquents, you should be in school, I Hinako Ninomiya will punish you." Her voice was richer, fuller, dripping with sexuality. As the light cleared, those staring at the scene saw first the forms of the children, drained of colour, lying on the ground like empty see-through husks. Standing over the unconscious forms was a tall woman in a skin-tight yellow dress. She had the same grey bitmap and long hair as the child and held the young sprite's coin in her hand.

Danger senses refined by living in a system with two viruses and a short-tempered defender kicked in. Screaming and going bug-eyed binomes started dashing about the park.

"More delinquents," Miss Hinako declared, looking at the panicking binomes. In a flash she changed her coin for a larger one. "Happo Fifty-Yen Satsu!" Tendrils of energy snaked from her victims, sucking into the hole in the centre of the coin.

Left and right binomes fell to the ground, drained of energy and colour. As the last wisps were sucked into the tall woman a hurricane of petals formed above her. Amidst the Sakura petals, the black figure of Kodachi appeared, grinning maniacally. Watching her creation survey her victims the self-proclaimed Queen of Chaos burst into her best evil laugh.

*****

Sensing the approaching cloud of anger the doors to the 's conference room snapped open, allowing Akane to storm in. Nabiki raised her head from the table-like window, showing no concern about her sister's mood. Beside her Kasumi gave Akane a worried look before returning her attention to the images in the display. Along with the two sprites was Mike, standing on a box staring at the images. A cold compress sat nestled between his antennae.

"What's the idea with calling me back?!" Akane demanded, stomping up to the table. Behind her, Fuchikoma scuttled through the door as it snapped shut.

"Come, see for yourself," Kasumi waved at the window.

The image of Floating Point Park was overlaid in the display area by graphs and dialogs. Most of the information pertained to the sprite standing in the centre of the picture. Akane didn't recognise her, and she knew all of the humanoid sprites in Mainframe, not hard considering how few were left after her mother's accident.

"So?" Akane exclaimed. "She's dangerous, let's go get her!"

Nabiki shook her head. "She's Kodachi's handiwork, we can't face her as we are now."

"How can you possibly know that?" Akane sneered. Nabiki's answer was to reach out and touch the scroll bar on the window. The image flickered, showing Hinako's head and Kodachi floating above her. An energy drop formed on Akane's brow.

"Now that you are here we can get to work," Kasumi said, looking about the group. "I have something that will temporarily increase our powers so that we can defeat this viral monster and maybe its creator, but no one must know about it."

"Why not?" Nabiki inquired suddenly.

Ignoring her Kasumi pulled out five objects. Four of them were pens; gold plated at one end and uniquely coloured at the other. A globe, matching the pen's colour, (red, green, blue or orange,) topped the rods. The final object was a pink locket, five gems, each a different colour, were set in the cover, linked by lines to form the points of a star.

Akane put her hands on her hips and glared at her oldest sister. "Why didn't you give us these things when we had to face Da Principal?!"

"I didn't think Ranma and Ryoga would look good in a sailor fuku." Kasumi answered, stumping her sister. "Akane this is for you." Kasumi held out the locket, which Akane took and looked at confused. "Nabiki." she handed the red pen to her sister. "Mike." The orange pen was offered and taken. "And the blue one is mine."

Nabiki levelled a glare at Kasumi. "Ah, sis, there are four pens, whose is the last?"

Kasumi pointed a finger up, causing everyone to look at the ceiling. Clapping wafted down as Nabiki groaned. "I don't believe it."

*****

Kodachi laughed evilly.

"Are you going to stop sometime soon?" Hinako asked, staring up at the floating virus. She was starting to get tired of the non-stop cackling of her mistress. They had been in the park for so long that the energy she had built up draining all the delinquent binomes was starting to leak away.

"Enjoy yourself my precious Youma, this is just the first taste of those who will fall before you. We have yet to face those that killed my precious Ranma!" Kodachi threw back her head and, much to the other sprite's disgust, started laughing again.

Hinako's face darkened. "And just what is a Youma?"

"Why you are!" Kodachi cried amidst her cackling, pointing a hand in Hinako's general direction.

"That's just the kind of circular logic we expect from you, Kodachi!" a strong voice sneered.

Both Kodachi and Hinako snapped to attention, and scanned the area around them. "Who's there!" the virus demanded.

A figure stepped out from behind a tree. She had a green bitmap and was wearing a bitmap tight white leotard with a blue skirt and a deep pink bow on her back that matched her knee high boots. A gold tiara peeked out from beneath her short brown hair. "I am the champion of justice Sailor Moon, I fight for love and freedom against the forces of evil, and that means you!" As she spoke Sailor Moon went through a series of poses, ending pointing towards the virus and her minions.

Stepping out on the other side of the tree was a taller girl, like Sailor Moon's she was dressed in a blue sailor fuku, although her bow and boots were also blue. Her brow was also adorned with a tiara, hiding beneath her long flowing black hair. "In the name of the god of Knowledge I will protect the innocent, for I am Sailor Mercury!"

The next girl emerged from behind Sailor Moon to pose dramatically. As with the previous two she wore a white sailor fuku, but the dress and bow were both coloured red. The tiara on her forehead showed easily with her boyish haircut. Surprisingly her feet were adorned with a pair of high-heeled shoes. "I, Sailor Mars, will fight for justice in high-heels!"

There was a pause before a box fell from the tree above, bouncing a few times before coming to rest beside Sailor Mars. It got to its feet, revealing its eyes in the centre of the screen and the orange dress resting beneath its speaker. "Protecting love and the freedom of speech, I am Sailor Venus." Everyone glared at him.

Finally a fifth figure leapt out of the tree. It looked like a red mechanical bug wearing a green dress over the back segment of its body. A large golden circlet sat around the "head" section and each of its limbs ended in sandaled claws. "As Sailor Jupiter I will fight for the weak and down-trodden!"

Sailor Mars looked at the others out of the side of her eyes, still standing in her pose. "Does anyone know why we did that?" she whispered.

Sneering Kodachi crossed her arms. "So the defenders are too cowardly to come themselves, instead sending a group of girls to face me! Well I will destroy you, then I will go on and make them pay for destroying my precious Ranma!"

"I AM NOT A GIRL!" Sailor Venus objected loudly. Everyone turned to look at him, then the dress he was wearing, then back to his screen, disbelief in their eyes. "Okay, okay, whatever," he grumbled.

"She doesn't recognise us?" Moon whispered to Mercury.

"Must be some kind of data mask in the codes," Mercury replied equally quietly. "Just run with it."

Sailor Moon stepped forward, and stared heroically at Kodachi. "This system's defenders know that we are better suited to defeat the likes of you, evil Queen, and defeat you we will, for we are the Sailor Senshi!"

"We shall see!" the evil Queen Kodachi cried. "Get them Hinako, punish these fools!"

Hinako whipped out her small coin again. "Happo Five-Yen Satsu!"

The five scouts leapt away, leaving the blast to impact on the tree, leaving it colourless and drooping. Each of the Scouts landed on their knees, ready to fight.

Sailor Venus raised one finger to point into the sky. "Venus Crescent Beams smash!" she, ah he cried, swinging his arm down. A beam of light shot from his finger, lancing towards the evil Youma.

Miss Hinako dove to the side, and aimed at Venus for an energy draining blast. However she found her fingers empty. "My coin! Where's my coin?!" She started looking about, before finding it resting not far away.

Sailor Mars, also spotting the object of her attention, linked her hands before her in a childish imitation of a gun. She lowered her head as if praying. "Fire soul!" Pointing her outstretched fingers towards the coin she sent out a burst of fire that erased it. A pang of regret at the necessity of it struck Sailor Mars.

"Curses!" Hinako cried, and pulled another coin from a pouch at her waist. "Happo Five-Yen Satsu!" Another blast shot towards Sailor Mars, sending her scrambling out the way.

Unnoticed the blast continued on its way, until striking a young one binome with brown hair wearing a more sedate sailor fuku. She collapsed to the ground, drained. A zero binome wearing glasses so thick that they distorted his eyes ran up to her. "Naru!" he cried picking her up to cradle her.

Back on the battlefield, the Sailor Senshi found themselves on the defensive, leaping out of the way as blast after blast flew from Hinako's coin. Sailor Mercury had managed to find herself a hiding place and had pulled out a small compact. Opening it revealed a tiny keyboard and display screen. Touching a few controls she brought up a display on the Youma. It confirmed what she had already guessed.

"Everyone, get ready to act!" she called, stepping out from her cover.

As Miss Hinako readied herself for an another attack Sailor Mercury stood arms crossed before her and eyes closed in concentration. "Shabon SPRAY!" she yelled, sending a cloud of bubbles flying out. A heavy fog settled over the area, leaving each of the combatants standing in a world of their own.

"How dare you delinquents hide from me!" Hinako cried and sent out blasts at wild.

"I think you won't be needing that!" Jupiter cried cheekily from the fog, and a claw whirred out of the mist to lock around the coin. The youma stumbled forward as it jerked from her hand. As Hinako reached for her larger coin a figure materialised behind her and grabbed the pouch containing all of Hinako's money.

"Mars debt collection!" the girl cried, vanishing back into the fog.

"How dare you!" Hinako exclaimed.

"Now Sailor Moon!" Mercury's voice rang out strong through the rapidly thinning fog.

Shapes became discernible to the Youma, but the one that captured her attention was standing in front of her, arm raised above its head. A crescent shape on the end of a short rod was visible.

"Moon Healing," Sailor Moon sang, waving the Crescent Moon wand before her, "ACTIVATION!" Power flowed from the wand and into Miss Hinako, causing her to scream as all the evil Kodachi had fed into her was cleansed from her body. She collapsed to the ground, no longer quite the buxom woman she had been, but healed of her pain.

Kodachi, seeing her creation defeated became infuriated. "Curse you Sailor Senshi, I will return!" she vanished in a hurricane of petals, leaving only her grating laughter to mock them.

*****

Fuchikoma peered through the window into the Nekohanten. Inside, sitting at Akane's usual both were the rest of the Sailor Senshi in civilian forms. Unusually the group wasn't the centre of attention. Instead the patrons of the restaurant were discussing the new heroes in Mainframe. While speculation as to their real identities was rife, not a single guess was anywhere near the truth.

Mousse glided up beside the booth. "What can I get the most important family in Mainframe?" he inquired pleasantly. Mike cleared his throat. "Oh yeah and you."

"Just a quantum shake thanks," Akane replied, overriding Mike, "heavy on the chocolate quarks."

"I'll have some electron herb tea thanks Mousse," Nabiki added.

Kasumi was still looking at the menu before her. "And I'll have a power salad, two data burgers and a large strange quark sundae please." She looked up to find everyone staring, surprise in their eyes. "Is something wrong?"

"Of course not madam," Mousse replied, adjusting his glasses. "I'll be back with your order in a moment." He glided off down his rails.

"Hey, he forgot me!" Mike cried, watching Mousse vanish into the kitchen.

Nabiki looked askance at Kasumi "Hungry sis?"

"Oh yes, saving the system is hard work." Kasumi smiled sweetly and Nabiki couldn't tell if she was joking or not.

"Yeah, but not a person knows we did it," Akane grumped.

Nabiki shrugged. "Look on the bright side sis, now Kodachi is looking for the Sailor Senshi instead of chasing us to get revenge. And we don't have to worry about Mike blowing the secret."

"Got that right," Mike grumbled. "No way I'll admit to wearing that skirt."

Their laughter carried across the restaurant, causing heads to turn.


	5. v 2,2,2

Wild Boot: The Net Games

By David Farr

Tenchi Muyo is copyright of AIC : Pioneer LDC, INC. ReBoot is the property of Mainframe. Ranma 1/2 is copyrighted by Rumiko Takahashi/Shogakukan,Inc. All are used here respectfully for the purposes of fanfiction. This story may be redistributed only if unchanged and no fee is charged.

*****

Tenchi: I was a normal sprite,

Learning, Training and Processing

Then They came,

And life got a lot more complicated.

*****

v 2.2.2: Break Out

*****

The prisoner stared past the glowing bars of his cage into the darkness beyond. His arrogance shone on his blue face, despite his incarceration. Whoever had captured him had left him with his clothes, a damaged blue padded suit hidden beneath a forest green robe. A small pair of glasses perched upon his nose. Long silver bangs rested on his shoulders.

He shifted slightly, golden eyes focusing on another patch of darkness. "So Washuu, have you come to gloat?" he inquired in a measured and even tone.

A child-like woman stepped out of the darkness. She was much smaller than the imprisoned man yet her gaze met his with equal strength. Her clothing was a uniform, a formal outfit of greens, blues and blacks similar to the man's robes. Silvery skin reflected the blue bands of the cage bars.

The woman stroked one hand through her long red spiky hair. "Oh no, Kagato, just come to make sure you're tucked up nice and comfy." Her voice held an innocent arrogance clothed in a nasal tone.

Copying the movement Kagato reached up and flicked aside his forelock. A satisfied smile came to his lips as Washuu's eyes focussed on his temples.

'Green veins?' Washuu thought, 'He didn't have those when he first came to me.' Her eyes strayed from this anomaly to the gold and black Icon on his chest and, not for the first time, she wondered about its significance. Like her own it was a half-and-half circle with an inverting diamond on it, but he had never explained the difference in colour.

"It must be comforting to be in the superior role once more professor." No emotion crept into the man's voice. "You were lucky that Cyber Patrol bimbo stumbled onto your cell when I left it unguarded."

"Yes, not even I foresaw that example of the Chaos theorem. Still as the greatest genius on the Web," she put a cheesy and self congratulatory smile, "I took advantage of the situation and turned the tables on you!"

"I'm sure the two Juraian Princesses were a lot of help too. Especially where that ditz was involved," Kagato stared at her, still with that same knowing half-smile.

Washuu hid her face behind a fan with the red sun motif. "Oh, even pure chaos can be tamed. Of course it takes a real genius to handle someone like Mihoshi!"

"So now you have me, you'll return to Jurai and see that I stand trial for my dastardly crimes." He spat the last two words out.

Washuu's fan vanished and she glared angrily at the man. "You bet your bitmap buster! You subverted my work, MY DAUGHTER, and destroyed entire systems in your insane QUEST! I'll see to it that you spend the rest of your process in the deepest file tree I can find!" Turning she strode into the darkness.

Left alone in the darkness Kagato's smile turned into a victorious sneer and he started to chuckle under his breath.

*****

As the door to the makeshift, but powerful, brig slid shut behind the assembler another girl glided up. The newcomer was clothed in a long formal dress of purple, cream, and light blue robes. Like Kagato her skin was blue, although Washuu knew that if the pair were related it was so distant that the skin colour was the only thing they shared. As always she presented herself with the grace and dignity her position as first princess of Jurai demanded. A circlet peeked out under the fringe of her deep purple hair and a silver and white version of the standard Icon clasped shut her robes.

"And how is our prisoner, Miss Washuu?" she asked, her speech perfectly enunciated.

"As annoying as usual," she sighed. "And how many times do I have to tell you Aeka," she pulled a massive bazooka from nowhere, "CALL ME LITTLE WASHUU!" Somehow she towered over the taller girl.

A bead of energy formed on her brow. "Yes little Washuu."

"That's better," Washuu said, returning to sweetness and smiles. Then a concerned look passed over her face. "If you're here, who's with Mihoshi?"

Washuu's expression immediately became contagious. "Oh my, I do hope she has not--"

"Miss Washuu, Princess Aeka!" A voice called, coming from down the corridor. As they turned the sound of running feet reached their ears and the third member of their party came dashing up, stumbling as she came.

In her home system the people had developed brown bitmaps under the glare of an intense tear and, like many of her people, she had escaped the rather inhospitable environment out onto the web. Realistically her only way out was to join the Cyber Patrol, a group funded by the government of Jurai with intent of making the Web a safer place for sprites. Unfortunately this left Mihoshi wearing an outfit that made her look more a flight attendant on a luxury cruiser than a first class detective. Washuu's eyes lingered on the girl's Icon, a stylised CP logo, indicating the extra security code she possessed.

"Mihoshi, you haven't been touching things in the generator room again have you?" Washuu inquired, hopeful.

Mihoshi skidded to a stop, took a deep breath and start talking. "Oh, I was going down there just to check up on some things, you know make sure the cell energy wouldn't run out or anything, but when I got down to that level there were all these funny green glowing lines on the floor and walls, and my alarm went off so I decided to come find Aeka, since it is her ship and all, she might know what's going on."

Washuu's face fell. "Green lines?" The image of Kagato's temples flashed into her mind. "Aeka, check Kagato, then get Sasami. Take Mihoshi too. I'm going down to the generator room!" The pair watched as the small sprite vanished down the corridor.

*****

The main deck of Aeka's ship Ryuoh could easily have been mistaken for a park. Large trees held their foliage above paths that wandered out of dense shrubbery to circle sparkling blue energy lakes. There was no engine room and no complicated conduiting. Instead the ship was powered by the single large tree sprite resting in the centre of the ship.

Space trees like Ryuoh had developed in the system of Jurai, allowing the inhabitants to construct web ships of immense power that could safely traverse the dangerous data storms without suffering from degradation. Slowly the network of Jurai expanded their influence across the web, finding other systems and by their presence alone, encouraging the creation of similar object-based technologies. Still, nothing had come close to mirroring the power of a Juraian battle crusier.

The bridge of the ship was a raised dais resting before the tree Ryuoh. It was from here that Aeka, and her alone, could command her beloved ship and it was here that she had brought Mihoshi and her young sister Sasami to wait.

Sasami was still oh-one, only ten megacycles since compiling. Like her big sister her bitmap colour palette featured mainly blues. Two long pony-tails of long sky-blue hair sprouted from the sides of her head, arcing down to her waist. She wore a less conservative outfit, better for playing in, but still formal enough for a princess of the network of Jurai. Her silver and white Icon glistened in the light of the control displays.

"Spam!" Washuu cursed, popping up into the cavity of a nearby tree. "I can't believe he did this!" Her hands clasped behind her back, the assembler strode out onto the bridge. "How long to our destination?"

Taken back by the vehemence in the smaller sprites voice, Aeka recoiled. "We are almost there now, it is only a matter of a few hundred nanoseconds. May I ask what has gone wrong?"

"Kagato tricked us!" Washuu raged. "He let himself be caught so we'd take him to wherever Ryoko was, hoping to get us and Yosho's sword all together in one place! Before he faced us he gave Ryuoh a secondary-infection of some virus-infection he's picked up!"

"My Ryuoh!" Aeka cried. "Oh my poor, poor..."

"Hush!" snapped Washuu, still pacing back and forth. "It's not that bad yet, the infection is only in the outer units, including MY GENERATORS! We might get to that system, but we'll have to destroy most of the ship once we get there, to prevent the tree from becoming infected." She stopped, anger clearly on her face. "I can't believe HE TRICKED ME!"

"Wait a nanosecond," Sasami interjected, "we don't know if brother Yosho is with Ryoko."

Washuu grinned. "Good point, but his sword is all that can hold Ryoko in place, so if we find her, we find it."

"And that's what Kagato believes." Sasami summarised.

"I believe so."

*****

"Give me the sword," the web creature begged. "Pppplllleeeeeaaaaassssseee!"

Tenchi backed away, unfortunately Ryoko's strong grip on the front of his shirt kept him from going far. She had tried seduction, only Tenchi's shyness had knocked out that idea. Once he'd awoken Ryoko had tried threats, that worked worse, she'd simply discovered that the sword protected him. So she fell back on pleading.

"For the last time, I'm not giving it to you!" Tenchi cried. "You'll just run amok again and destroy things!"

Ryoko released his shirt and floated backwards across his room, hands clasped before her. She was the perfect picture of sincerity. "Oh, I'd never do something like that!"

Tenchi's returning gaze was sarcastic. "My school." He turned to look out the window. The light of the tear could still be seen over the city.

"Okay, so I got a little carried away," Ryoko giggled as if trying to forget the incident. "Anyway, I only want the modules so I can get out of this backwater system."

"HEY! This is my home!" Tenchi's voice was strained.

"Sorry, but I only want them so I escape before SHE arrives." Whoever she was, Ryoko obviously didn't like her. "She's a virus!"

"A VIRUS?!" Tenchi tried to pull back again, with as little success.

"She's like a virus, just when you think you've gotten rid of her, she shows up again. If she gets her hands on me that data store will seem like such a nice place!" Her golden eyes were big and pleading.

Tenchi looked at his reflection in her silvery skin. "You just want the modules?"

"Yep. Got it in one!"

Tenchi glanced down at the sword. The three modules glowed slightly in hilt, as if awaiting their return. "So how do I do this?"

"Just concentrate on returning them," Ryoko replied with a shrug.

A serene look swept over Tenchi's face as he followed her direction. Ryoko watched his face, and smiled slightly at his handsome face. She'd always enjoyed watching him, especially when he was like this.

Closing her own arms she reached out, as if to hug him and started concentrating on the flash modules. Power flowed into her as the transfer began. Once more the hacking algorithms contained within flowed into her awareness. Ultimately knowledge was power, especially if you knew how to alter the system environment.

Ryoko opened her eyes and looked into Tenchi's worried face. Dramatically she raised her wrist. "Ryo-ohki, vessel of the web, I summon you forth from the darkness of the your prison!"

The modules glowed, beams of light striking out at random about the room. Tenchi went cross-eyed as he focused on one that had alighted on his nose. In a slow graceful dance, the beams swept across the room to focus on one point. A pool of darkness formed on the wall and the light flickered out. Tenchi and Ryoko both stared at the wall for a few seconds.

"MYA!" a high-pitched voice cried, then a small brown/grey blur bounced out of the hole and into Ryoko's waiting arms.

"I'm happy to see you too Ryo-ohki," Ryoko cooed, nuzzling the little animal. "Was it cold in that hidden directory?" The child-talk sounded strange coming from the tough web-creature.

Tenchi stared in wonder, ignoring the black hole as it slid shut. Ryoko's new "friend" was a cat-like creature with a massive pair of ears that reminded him of a rabbit. It was cute and looked happy, not exactly what he'd expected from a software pirate's web ship. "Is that, is that your ship?"

Holding Ryo-ohki out, Ryoko smiled at him. "Meet Ryo-ohki. She's not my original ship, that one was too badly fragmented after the battle with Yosho, but she put this little thing's source code in a hidden directory, and it hatched when I woke up."

"So what are you supposed to do? Wait for it to compile up?" Tenchi demanded.

Ryoko let out a low chuckle. "No, of course not." She reached out and snagged Tenchi's collar as she lifted into the air. "Come on!"

"Ryoko wait!" Tenchi cried as the pair flickered out of existence.

*****

Nobuyuki's surprise when he saw his son and his new girlfriend vanish before his eyes was nothing compared to what he felt when they reappeared right behind him. Tenchi was hanging onto the woman as if his process depended on it, which it probably was, they were floating in mid-air two levels above the nearest solid plane.

All he had wanted to do was record Tenchi's development. Okay so it was spying on his son, but as a father it was his duty. Discovering that his normally shy son had sneaked a beautiful and sexy woman into his room was too good to believe, so he needed something to prove it. Only this wasn't what he'd expected.

"RYOKO!" Tenchi complained again as they hovered there, not hearing the thump of his father hitting the level below.

The girl gave him a smile. "Ryo-ohki! LET'S GO!"

"Mya, mya, MYA!" cried the small creature, somersaulting out of the pirate's grip. In mid spin, she started to spin and contort, her form distorting into long crystal shards. After the rather painful looking transformation finished a massive craft, built as if two crowns had been stuck about a large red globe. A single massive spike pointed down towards the system.

"Tenchi, meet Rho-ohki!" Ryoko proclaimed, gesturing to the huge web ship.

"Wow," was Tenchi's only comment as the pair vanished once more.

*****

The two windows floated before Washuu, one acting as a display, the other as a keyboard. Her fingers blurred across the later, Squares of light shone as her fingers encountered the window and information flickered past, faster than most sprites could read.

Aeka stood not far away staring at her own display windows. Dominating one window, larger than any system based tear, was the entrance to their destination, nothing more than damage in the web interface. Such holes were common, and the chaotic energy attracted the web connections of many systems.

"We're not going to make it," Washuu grumped. "The infection will breach the main unit before we reach Nippon. Damn Kagato!"

"Where is he Miss Washuu?" Sasami asked, stepping up to the assembler's side.

Washuu turned to the young princess, seeing the worry creasing her face. "That, my dear is a good question."

"There!" Aeka jabbed a finger at the display.

Everyone was suddenly by her side, staring at the point she was pointing at.

"What? It's the tear," Washuu stated, squinting hard. "I'd have expected this from Mihoshi, not you."

"I saw a flash of silver, a ship, I'm sure!" Aeka exclaimed.

"That's impossible, this is a proscribed area. No ships allowed," Washuu returned.

"Maybe we should send out a mayday, in case sister Aeka did see something," Sasami suggested. Everyone stared at her for a second.

"Right," Washuu announced, spinning and heading towards her console. "Aeka, you do that, I'll try to bolster the defenses."

Aeka turned back to the displays. "Open hailing frequencies!" A blank window popped open before her. "Mayday, mayday. Ship..."

*****

"... in distress. Any vessel hearing this message is asked to aid in evacuation." Ryoko chuckled as Aeka's image repeated her message in one of Ryo-ohki's control crystals.

The bridge of the cabbit turned web ship was little more than the top of the sphere at the heart of the crystalline structure. Red on the outside, the sphere still allowed light in, giving Tenchi and Ryoko a half hemisphere view of the multicoloured data streams of the web. Inside various diamonds floated about a column in the centre of the deck.

"Mya, ma-mya," Ryo-ohki announced excitedly from about them. "Mya?"

"No, we aren't," the pirate replied, lounging in a seat formed of crystal. "She can just stew in whatever trouble she's got herself into!"

Tenchi stepped up. "This is the sprite that's chasing you?!" He watched as Ryoko nodded. "And you're just going to abandon her? How can you be so heartless?"

Ryoko floated out of the chair. "Come on, she's made my life a misery. Why should I help her?"

"Ah..." Tenchi thought quickly, he needed a reason that'd appeal to her base nature. "Because then she'd owe you," he pointed out.

A feral smile broke across her face. "I like the way you think. Ryo-ohki let's go rescue ourselves a princess!" She thrust her finger outwards.

"MYA!" Ryo-ohki exclaimed, taking off at high speed.

*****

The tranquillity of Ryuoh's bridge was broken by screams and blaster fire, both of which were issuing from the panicked Cyber Patrol detective. Mihoshi's weapon was cutting through the vines that snaked their way down from the surrounding trees.

"WHAT'S HAPPENING?!" she wailed. "Why are they attacking us?"

Floating next to her, arms outstretched, Aeka didn't respond. Her concentration was on holding up the force field that kept the vines from reaching the four sprites. The vines were one of the more passive internal defences her space ship could muster, capable of restraining anyone, even if that sprite could teleport.

"Because the virus has corrupted Ryuoh's friend or foe recognition database," Washuu replied, continuing tapping on her keyboard. Thankfully that wasn't connected to Ryuoh, so Washuu could still work on a cure. Unfortunately the virus, although not as powerful due to the secondary infection, was still too complex for her to retro-engineer without a lot more equipment.

Click, click, click. Everyone stopped and stared at Mihoshi as she continued to pull the trigger of her gun. Bolts no longer flew from its barrel, instead only a light flashed on the top.

"Out of energy," Aeka commented in her most disapproving tone.

"This is bad, very bad," added Washuu, looking up from her keyboard.

No longer hampered by Mihoshi's constant and chaotic firing, the vines wrapped around Aeka's force bubble, plunging the group into a darkness lit only by the glowing characters on Washuu's display and the energy arcing off Aeka.

Sasami moved closer to her sister and wrapped her arms about the older girl's legs. "Sister Aeka, I'm scared."

Moments passed without a sound, then Aeka grunts of exertion became audible in the silence. The crackling streams coming from Aeka intensified, and it became obvious to those inside that the force field was no longer a sphere.

Washuu looked up from her monitor, her silver face under lit in a strange blue. "The vines are exerting too much force, the Lady Aeka can't keep this up! We're DOOMED!"

Aeka's cry of pain echoed in their ears. Sasami could feel the tension suddenly leave her sister's body as the princess started to topple down on top of her, then the other two slammed into her. The surrounding vines rushed in, threatening to encase them all, then suddenly fell away.

"That sword sure makes for a useful gardening tool," a snide voice remarked as the vines collapsed about them.

"RYOKO!" a young man exclaimed. "Just grab them and let's get out of here."

The three stood confused, supporting the unconscious form of Princess Aeka, for a nanosecond. Floating not far away was a woman with a hairstyle and bitmap a lot like Washuu. Just beyond her a young man, looking incredibly mismatched with his companion, wielded a glowing blade against the attacking vines.

"Right," Ryoko raced over and grabbed Washuu's arm. "Alright everyone, hold tight, here goes the Ryoko express." Washuu just had time to grab Sasami and Mihoshi, who were holding Aeka, before Ryoko teleported them out. Moments she reappeared and grabbed Tenchi, vanishing with him.

With no targets the vines retreated once more into the trees, leaving the bridge once more calm and serene. That is until another figure appeared. Kagato looked about, dusting off his robe. "So Washuu, you've managed to escape again, but I know you too well. You will follow me, and in that is your downfall."

*****

Ryo-ohki's bridge looked and sounded like a disaster area. Aeka had recovered just as Ryoko had returned with Tenchi, her arms draped unnecessarily around his neck. While the pair argued both Sasami and Mihoshi thanked Tenchi for the rescue, to which he modestly replied it was nothing. Meanwhile Washuu stood off to one side watching everything and fanning herself.

"I asked you where is my brother?!" Aeka demanded, a series of small logs appearing around her.

"And I said I have no idea!" Ryoko screamed back, energy crackling about her. "Is this anyway to repay the person who saved your process?!"

"Hmph! You probably thought you had something to gain!" Aeka turned her back on the pirate.

"And what do you want pipsqueak?!" Ryoko demanded of Washuu, looming over her.

"Your bitmap's deteriorated," the small assembler observed, stepping around the pirate. "So has your structure, that must be slowing you down." She poked Ryoko.

Ryoko spun angrily and glared down at her. "How would you know ya little shrimp?!"

Washuu rapped her on the head with her fan. "Don't talk that way to your mother!"

"MOTHER?!" Ryoko repeated incredulously.

Having lost Ryoko's interest Aeka wandered over to the other small group. Tenchi was still trying to answer questions, some invasive (from Sasami) and other inane (from Mihoshi).

"Excuse me." Aeka's voice was back to its calm polite self as she address the young man.

"Ah... yeah?" Tenchi was busy scratching the back of his head.

"May I look at that sword you were using?" she inquired, pointing at the hilt the young man still carried.

"Sure, here." Tenchi offered the sword to Aeka.

Aeka didn't even bother taking it from his hands, instead just sighing and shaking her head. "It is as I thought. That is my brother's sword. Tell me, do you know where he is?"

Tenchi looked down at the hilt. "The original owner? He died, I think. At least that's what the tale Grandfather told me said. I found this in a data store."

Tenchi winced as Aeka's face fell. The princess sank to her knees, tears welling up in her eyes. "Yosho, dead? It, it can't be? Not after all I have done."

"Mya! MYA!" Ryo-ohki cried, cutting through both conversations.

"IT'S WHAT?!" Ryoko exclaimed, spinning about.

"No, he can't," Washuu breathed as Ryoko flickered across to the controls.

"What is it?" Aeka demanded quietly, climbing to her feet.

A window display appeared in answer. The large tear was gone, instead a large silver globe containing an image of Tenchi's home system sat in its place. Ryuoh's tail could be barely seen, sliding effortlessly into the picture.

"RYO-OHKI, AFTER HIM!" Washuu yelled, pointing at the display.

"Myyyyyyyaaaaahhhhh!!"

*****

PAuthor's Outtakes.

PJust a funny joke I thought of but couldn't use.

*****

"Ryo-ohki! Let's go!" Ryoko exclaimed.

"Mya," the small creature replied saddly, turning to face her. It tapped the air and a window popped open between them.

"'This Shareware version of Ryo-ohki has passed its expiration date,'" the pirate read. "'While it will continue to be a friend and playmate, the web ship form will no longer be available. Please contact Washuu for information on how to upgrade to the retail edition.'"


	6. v 2,2,3

Wild Boot: The Net Games

By David Farr

Tenchi Muyo is copyright of AIC : Pioneer LDC, INC. ReBoot is the property of Mainframe. Ranma 1/2 is copyrighted by Rumiko Takahashi/Shogakukan, Inc. All are used here respectfully for the purposes of fanfiction. This story may be redistributed only if unchanged and no fee is charged.

*****

Ukyo: We live in the games,

Travelling through cities and systems.

Protecting, Repairing,

And Searching...

For home.

*****

v 2.2.3: Cyber Crisis

*****

A single lilac hand reached out and pulled aside the rich green fronds of the fern, revealing Ukyo's green and black smeared face. About her the birds twittered and leaves rustled as non-existent animals darted through the bushes. There was something to be said for the atmospherics in this game, it covered the sounds of the three gamers as they crept up on the User.

It was a war game, the type where a single shot would kill you, even from a fairly weak weapon. So the four had kept separate from the local system sprites, letting those defenders run with an unusual amount of efficiency and act as a diversion. Surprisingly they'd managed to get the User on the run and cut down three of his four characters. The last was now holed up at the end of a ravine, sitting on top of an ammo dump. Getting to him was next to impossible.

Thankfully Ukyo had rebooted as a sniper, and the User was just barely in sight in the ravine below, standing with the impossible stillness he was known for.

"Is too-too strange," Shampoo murmured, attracting the attention of the other three. She had lifted herself slightly above the line of the bush and was gazing through a pair of binoculars down the ravine.

"What is it Shampoo?" Ranma inquired, not moving.

"Can see battle at other end of ravine," she reported. A few moments passed as she fiddled with the knobs on her binoculars. "Is system sprites, they fighting each other. Big blue metal sprites are shooting binomes."

Ranma turned his head back to Ukyo and failed to notice the slight paling in her cheeks. "Ucchan, finish the user, then we'll see about this."

Ukyo nodded. Priorities were important, and according to Shampoo the User would soon be able to signal for an airstrike. The losses from that would be much, much worse. She turned back to see the User still standing exactly where she had left him. Effortlessly she brought the sniper rifle to bear, adjusting the sights for the conditions. In moments she had the crosshairs on him.

The User had started with four characters, a medic, a commando, a demolition expert and a communications officer. The last, a scrawny sprite carrying a large backpack, was all that was left of the team. He was shifty looking, and given enough time he could summon in help. Thankfully he was weak, meaning the bullet from the sniper gun would kill him.

Slowly and almost lovingly Ukyo squeezed the trigger. There was no explosion, only the sound of something small ripping through the air. In her sights she saw the User recoil, blood splurting from his head.

"Game Over," a harsh system voice hissed, causing a shiver to run down Ukyo's spine. Moments later the field of purple energy passed over her, leaving her clutching empty air.

*****

Both sides of the battle faltered as the game cube shot up into the heavens. The ADCPU were the first to recover, renewing their attacks. With their high-tech weapons and powersuits returned, the system's defenders were more than capable of taking out the squad of bumas they were facing.

Detective Leon McNichol was a tall one binome with slicked back brown hair. Despite the darkness of the system he wore a sunglass (like sunglasses, but with only one lens) that went with his cool jacket. His ADCPU icon hung loosely from the black leather as he swung on the zero binome next to him.

While Leon was the cool guy, Daley definitely went into the class of "The Other Guy." The binome always wore the same purple suit and string necktie over a pink shirt. It didn't bother him that this gave certain impressions, as they were true and he was proud of it.

"Daley, get the patrol units into the air!" Leon snapped, looking down at him. "We didn't finish the game and the bumas sure as hell didn't. If there's someone that capable, I want to find them!" Behind him a powersuit pilot laughed as he let loose with an autocannon.

Daley wasn't looking at Leon, his gaze was fixed on the rooftops above. "I don't think that will be necessary."

Spinning, Leon expected to see four suited female sprites standing up there. They'd saved the butts of the ADCPU so many times it was almost guarantied that it would be them, certainly Leon would have bet on it.

It was a bet he would have lost. None of the four were wearing armour and only two were female. One of the men stood stoically, arms crossed, staring down at them. Next to him a purpled hared woman glared down at them, a single eye glowing an angry red. The other two figures both seemed less stand offish, leaning forward to watch.

Seeing they weren't needed, the four turned and headed along the edge of the roof. Leon and Daley watched as, unaided by powersuits, the group cleared the gap between the buildings and vanished into the darkness.

*****

Ranma stared down. This system, whatever it was called, was badly damaged. They hadn't gone far from the site of game before reaching the rift. It was a chasm reaching all the way down to the lowest levels of the system. No game had caused this, it was too irregular and total. His knowledge of system repair told him that it was almost impossible to repair without User intervention.

A single shard of structure dropped towards the darkness below, bouncing off cables and broken girders. Sighing, Ranma turned to the thrower. "RyoGA, you have no idea what's down there."

"Like I'm going to hit someone," the game sprite grumped.

"ouch" came a weak voice from below.

Ukyo, meanwhile, examined the city. Unlike Mainframe, Chicago or any of the other systems they had visited the skydome was dark and unlit. Still humming signs and lamps threw off enough light to see the main features. Like the massive tower dwarfing the Principal Office. Still gazing across the darkened city she felt something was wrong, something that stirred a memory, although she couldn't put her finger on it.

"System is damaged," Shampoo reported. "Shampoo not make much sense of diagnostics, keep getting garbled messages from Net communications protocols. Web connection is online."

"Spam, another failure," Ranma spat. "Well, record the web address, we can catalogue it for later."

Turning back to them, Ukyo sighed. "Not that gettin' back on the Net would help much, remember Ranma honey, the Guardians isolated Mainframe before we left." She walked back towards them.

"We can worry about that later," Ranma pointed out, "for now let's find out what we can about this system. I don't like the idea of sprites purposefully trying to loose a game."

"An' for that I'll need a term'nal," Ukyo added.

*****

The confines of the elevator always worried Madigan. It felt a little like a cage, and there were tales of binomes who had stepped in to go up to see the boss, only to be found broken outside the tower. Still, her position was one of the safest in Genom, last vacated by a deletion at the hands of the Knight Sabres' leader.

Madigan thought she had all the attributes for success. Okay, so she was a one binome, and thus smaller than the chairman, Quincy, but she was forceful with those below her; respectful with those above her but not obedient to the point of idiocy; she only allowed the best to work for her, never allowing a lucky break to make someone's career; and she paid attention, trying not to allow small details slip by her.

Small details like the mov she had to show Quincy.

The elevator stopped with a jerk, and then the doors slid open, revealing the plush interior of the chairman's office. As usual the lights were darkened and the chair behind the desk was turned away from her, letting the old sprite gaze out upon the city below.

"What is it Madigan?" Quincy's voice always sounded strange to her, like a young man pretending to be old. In a perverse way it suited the sprite, Madigan reflected as the chair swung around. He looked like an old man pretending to be young, with lush hair that in no way matched his faded green bitmap.

"Something interesting showed up in the last game," Madigan informed him in her thick Irish brogue

"Yes, I noticed that the ADCPU managed to win that last one. Pity, it'll put us a little behind in our schedule," Quincy mused, looking at Madigan in a way that appeared harmless.

"Actually sir, it wasn't the ADCPU, all deir units were still busy dealing with our bumas," she tossed out the file folder, which popped open into a large playback window. "One of our bumas relayed this image," the window display Ranma, Ukyo, RyoGA and Shampoo viewed from below. "Both the ADCPU and I believe that they are responsible for finishing the game."

Quincy leant forward, the most action Madigan had seen from the chairman since the Largo incident, and that had been a buma. "Bring it closer Madigan."

Shrugging the binome slapped at the window, sending it floating effortlessly through the air. It slowed to a halt before the older sprite.

"I thought so," Quincy said cryptically, leaning back. "Find them Madigan. Use whatever resources you have to, this takes precedence over all else. And I would like them alive. If possible."

Madigan blinked, this she had not expected. "Sir? I don't understand?"

"They represent a danger to our plans. I want to find out why they are here!"

*****

"I want to find out why they are here!" Sylia Stingray emphasised, tapping the window with her pointer. The image was the one taken by the ADCPU after the game. Sylia surveyed the room. Four other people sat watching with interest, the three other Knight Sabres and her little brother.

Priss, always the rebel, was barely paying attention and had probably missed at least half of the briefing, but that was no surprise. Her long legs had been slung over the arms of her chair and she lay with her head resting on the other. Every so often she had to blow away an errant lock of her brown hair as it slipped across her green face. She was always casual, wearing a leather jacket proudly proclaiming her own name and matching leather trousers.

Looking much more interested was Linna. More of a planner than Priss, she sat with a stylus sticking out of her hair band, glancing up and down from her PADD. As the group's close combat specialist she needed to be in good shape, and her standard system green bitmap was fine. Her clothing was tight, allowing nothing to catch whether at work in the gym or in combat.

Next to Linna sat Nene. Cute as a button, her bitmap colour and hair could only be described as pink. That was it, pink, it said it all. If Priss was a rebel then Nene was an airhead. Neither was of course, not really. Sylia simply wouldn't have included them in her fighting group if they could contribute, but Nene was the least physically adept, contributing more with her hacking skills and contacts inside the ADCPU. She still wore her uniform, having hurried over straight from work with the image.

Mackie, the only male in the room was very distracted. It was always a mistake to wear tight clothing, as Linna was, around him. The little pervert couldn't keep his eyes off her, and didn't seem to mind that everyone knew. Still, other than that he was a good boy, not exactly handsome, and always willing to help, especially where Nene was concerned.

Finally there was Sylia herself. She had formed the Knight Sabres and pretty much controlled them. As the only one who understood the hardware they used she was necessary. Oh, Mackie could work on it, but only Sylia knew all the ins and outs, thanks to a download from her late father. Her experiences had left her a private person, preferring not show her emotions. Many described to her as an enigmatic beauty.

"Ah, excuse me," Nene's high-pitched voice interrupted Sylia's thoughts.

Smiling Sylia turned to the short sprite. "Yes Nene, is something wrong?"

"What's the significance of the gold Icon?" she inquired, pointing at the picture.

"I'm glad someone noticed it."

"Well, you were only pointing right at it," Nene grumbled.

Sylia suppressed the urge to glare at her and went on with her briefing, now even Priss was paying attention. "The gold Icon is a very old symbol. It is worn only by a group of sprites known as Guardians. What's important to remember is that there hasn't been a Guardian in Megatokyo since before the crash ten megacycles ago."

"Big deal, so we've got someone who's decided to play vigilante." Priss stretched out, her arms waving in front of Linna.

"Knock it off Priss," Linna complied, slapping her arms away. "Do we have any clues, Sylia?"

Sylia looked at Nene. "Well?"

The ADCPU shrugged. "Leon's working on something, he thinks he might have found them."

"Okay then. Priss, Linna you get out and see if you can find them. Nene, keep track of the ADCPU, see what they can come up with. Mackie, you help her," Sylia directed.

"And what does that leave you doing?" Priss asked, sitting up.

"I have a few other streams of inquiry to pursue," she replied calmly.

Priss leapt to her feet and paced out, her hands clasped behind her head. "Well, I'll see what I can download from Leon."

"Come on Mackie, let's go," Nene grabbed the boys arm and dragged him out.

Sylia looked at Linna, who had yet to budge. She was staring at the image, her face a mask of concentration. Moments passed as the pair simply stood there. "Is something wrong Linna?"

"Huh?" Linna looked around then returned her gaze to the image. "No, I just... there's something about the one with the silver arm, she's familiar, but I can't place her."

A glance at the image brought Sylia no such feelings, obviously it was something Linna had encountered outside the Knight Sabres. "If you can remember it might help. Maybe you should see if Nene or Mackie can find something in the news archives."

Linna nodded. "I'll do that."

*****

Ranma sneezed. He held still for a moment, then sneezed again.

Ukyo looked up from her computer console. "Hey Ranma honey, ya must be popular." She returned her attention to her work.

The small apartment seemed crowded. It had only taken them a cycle to find somewhere to bunk for their stay in the system that had a terminal, thankfully the system accepted Net currency. Still it wasn't meant to hold four sprites and the four Pokemon.

RyoGA and Vulpix were sitting at the table, and for some reason they'd gotten into a staring match. Neither seemed to be winning. Shampoo stood next to the window, her cybereye watching outside while her real eye watched the inside. Helping Ukyo at the computer was Pikachu, offering the odd Pika of advice. Under the watchful "gaze" of Starmie, Ranma had settled into a routine of kata, until his sneezing fit had hit. Finally, on the kitchen bench, Pigeyot sat drinking some energy and doing a marvellous impression of that bobbing bird toy.

"Okay Ucchan, how are you doing?" Ranma asked, pacing over to the terminal.

"Well, I managed to find a backdoor into the ADCPU database, sugah. They seem to be ah special division of the CPU. Originally they were formed to play in the games, but when those blue things, they call them bumas by the way, started showing up their role was expanded." Ukyo paused for a breath. "Now though the bumas only attack in the games, apparently the destruction left by a game loss is enough for them."

"So they want to crash the system?" Ranma hazarded.

Ukyo shook her head. "No 'ope of that, ah company called Genom immediately rebuilds the sector. O' course all of that could come from the news servers, but what I have found is that Genom buys the sectors before rebuilding them."

"Cheap way of getting real estate," Ranma commented. "Any connection between Genom and the bumas?"

"Nice thinking sugah. None whatsoever, at least not at the level I've managed to hack," Ukyo admitted. "Give me some more time and I'll try to crack some ICE."

Ranma nodded and cracked his knuckles. "This whole thing stinks of viruses. We're going to have to be very careful, no telling how far the infection spreads."

"Vulpix!" the cute fox pokemon cried as RyoGA blinked.

*****

The hallway was lit only by the flickering of a neon light. A single window at one end shed light on the dark wall of the building beyond. Rubbish cluttered the floor, especially between the doors and small nulls whimpered in their disgusting homes.

Leon looked across the door at Daley. Both held guns ready. Leon nodded at his partner, who nodded back. A tip had led them to this apartment, supposedly the current residence of the four strangers.

Spinning, the one binome kicked at the door, sending it smashing open. "Freeze POLICE!" Silence greeted them.

Disdainfully a cat looked up from cleaning itself on the table. It gave them a long-suffering glare then went back to preening its cream and purple fur. It was a beautiful creature, not the type you'd expect in slums like these.

Leon stepped into the room, waving his gun about. The only other occupant was a large red and yellow dog, a chain attaching it to the wall. Belatedly it stood and started growling, stepping forward until the chain went taunt. Daley was thankful that this left them half the room to move about in, the mutt looked big enough to swallow him whole.

The sound of a running static shower reached the pair of ADCPUs. Leon indicated the bathroom door with his head and Daley followed him over to the door. Again they burst through the door.

"Freeze P---"

"EEEEKKK!! PREVERTS!"

Leon had just enough time to take in the view of the red head in next to nothing before the stool hit him square in the face. Amidst a hail of smaller objects Daley dragged off his unconscious partner, continuously apologising.

As Ranma-chan closed the door Ukyo dropped down from the ceiling above the door. "Well, it worked."

Ranma-chan tapped her Icon and her uniform armour reappeared on her body. "Told you so." She looked over at the animals. "I'm first for the shower."

Frisket growled.

"Well, who's gonna turn it on for you dog-boy?" Ranma-chan joked, walking towards the bathroom again.

*****

Nene sat back, her face lit by the display hovering before her. Right at the moment it was telling her that the image failed to match any in the databases, or as it put it: "Matches search criteria found not". That was almost as bad as: "Password is in the wrong."

"Whoever she is she isn't from this system," the hacker told the only other person in the darkened room still awake. Mackie had long since dropped off, quite literally as he'd fallen from his chair as sleep took him.

Nanoseconds passed as Linna thought. "Have you tried precrash databases?"

"Come on! She looks about sixteen megacycles, she'd have to have been little more than a kid precrash!" Nene complained.

Linna whapped Nene on the head. "So, deage her face, then run the search again!"

"Okay, okay. I'll have to access the ADCPU database to get the algorithms." The hacker's fingers started flying across the access pad and a bewildering series of windows filled the display, only to vanish nanoseconds later. "Huh?" She tried it again, with the same result. "Some random phreaker is using my backdoor!" A look of anger passed over her face and her fingers danced once more. "Whoever you are, you've got a hound on your tail."

Worry rose within Linna. "If you can't use the ADCPU--"

Nene silenced her by waving her finger before her face. "Who says I can't, no good hacker has only one way into a system!" Once more her fingers ran across the keyboard, this time the windows appeared and names started scrolling through them.

It took a while, but they finally got an answer.

"Two hundred and forty eight matches found," Linna read.

"Busy six megacycle old." Nene selected and opened the first item. It was a news article, ancient, but still valid.

The pair read through it, their eyes switching between the words and the accompanying picture. "SYLIA!" they chorused.

"I wasn't looking!" Mackie cried, awoken by the shout.

*****

"Crash it!" Ukyo slammed her fist onto the table beside the terminal. Quickly she flipped off the switch and grabbed the four red and white spheres on the table. "Pokemon, return!" All four of the creatures vanished in a flash, zapping into their portable homes.

The other three sprites reacted by collecting their equipment.

"What's the matter Ucchan?!" Ranma asked.

Ukyo pulled out her spatula, swung it, and then slung back into her code pocket. "Someone set ah hound on me, they'll probably arrive any nano!"

"Then we'd better book," RyoGA commented, opening the door.

"That bathroom, stupid game sprite." Shampoo pointed at the front door. "This one go out."

A soft growl slipped out of RyoGA's throat. "What am I? COMEDY RELIEF?"

"Yes," the amazon replied.

*****

Shampoo glanced out onto the road. The only signs of movement were from a bunch of punk binomes standing not far down the street and a old info-cream truck making it's way down the road, merrily playing a tune designed to attract young sprites.

"Is clear," she reported, "nothing we can no handle."

"Why can't we just use the rooftops?" RyoGA asked. As if in answer the sound of a hovercar passed overhead.

"Ever since our lil' appearance earlier, they've been up their watching for us," Ukyo replied. "We've gotta stick to the alley's for now."

The four sprites pushed open the doors and walked down the stairs to the street, only to find themselves surrounded by a group of binomes. They had simply melted out of the shadows around the base of the stairs. Ranma looked them over, a varied lot, they certainly didn't look they fitted together, a punk standing next to a mother and the group led by what looked like a business-nome. The group totalled sixteen.

"There's a gent wants to speak to you," the one binome in front said. "You're coming with us."

Ranma levelled a piercing glare at him that would have made Nabiki proud. "And if we don't?"

"Then we'll have to get rough," the binome replied simply.

A bark of laughter escaped Shampoo. "Oh, Shampoo just quiver in boots." Everyone looked quizzically at the shoes she was wearing. "IS JUST EXPRESSION!"

Ranma settled into a fighting stance. "I don't think so."

"The boss lady said they'd be trouble. Let's convince them!" The binomes all took he-man "show off your muscle" poses. Expression of agony filled their faces, then the skin of their bitmaps expanded, tearing clothes and turning a strange blue colour.

"AH, BUMA!" the driver of the info-cream truck screamed as he slammed his foot to the floor.

In a blur the buma attacked. Caught off guard by the swiftness of the attack Ranma could only vault backwards, alighting on the stair banister. Her four assailants immediately buried Shampoo, her gun trapped at her hip. Meanwhile Ukyo was playing tennis, batting away her attackers as they continuously rebounded. Worst off of the four was RyoGA, who was stumbling about trying to strike out at the four binomes hanging from his limbs.

The short moment that Ranma had spent looking gave one of the binome bumas the opening it needed. A zero barrelled into his chest, knocking him from his perch onto the stairs below. Pain shot through him as he landed on a corner.

'Spam, they're fast,' he thought, striking out at another that was falling towards him. 'Can't underestimate them!'

Ranma rolled away, leaving a third attacker to shatter a stair. Regaining his feet he blocked another flying leap, wincing at the impact, then started jumping backwards. The four bumas that had decided to pick on him just kept thrusting outwards, keeping him on the defensive.

"GET OFF SHAMPOO!" the amazon screamed from beneath the pile of bumas. "Prevert blue binomes get PURGED!"

"Ranma honey," Ukyo panted, raising her spatula to deflect another attack, "tell me you have a plan."

Before the Guardian could respond a blast of energy struck one of the binomes, sending it flying away from Ukyo. "Knight Sabres," a strong female voice cried, "its show time!" As one the remaining bumas looked up to see the four suited figures of the knight sabres.

All the figures were obviously female, despite the hardsuits. The armour was designed to hug their forms, minimising the bulk and increasing the agility of the wearing. In the lead was a figure in light blue, with a dark blue faceplate, neck piece and shoulder pads and grey around the joints and abdomen area.

Immediately beside her was a green hardsuit with red trimmings and an orange faceplate. Grey of the torso stretched all the from beneath her breasts to her hips and groin, indicating the improved flexibility. Ribbons attached to the helmet fluttered as she moved on.

Standing to one side, wisps of energy rising from an extended arm slightly darker shade of blue than the leaders. Pink racing strips across the helmet were the only break in the colour scheme other than the white highlights. Unlike the previous three this one had a pair of white antenna sprouting from where the ears would be on a sprite.

The final member of the knight sabres wore a bright pink and red suit with blue and white trimmings. Her suit had been designed with communications in mind with a half dozen pointed antenna sticking out from the back and helmet like wings. However she failed to move with the grace and precision of her three companions.

Using the distraction Ranma switched to the offensive, spin kicking a zero binome buma hard, sending it flying. As Shampoo burst free of her captors the Knight Sabres joined the battle. Blasts, punches and ribbons flew, hacking the binome bumas apart, leaving only shattered remains and burn marks on the pavement.

As Shampoo calmed herself from her rage, Ranma walked over to the four hardsuited women. "Thanks for the assist. If you hadn't come along, they would've worn us down sooner or later."

The woman in the light blue armour stepped forward. "I must admit that it wasn't for altruistic reasons, Guardian," Sylia told him, looking down. He was smaller than she expected.

Ranma stood, apparently relaxed, gently balancing on his toes. "You know of the Guardians? And what do you want?" Shampoo, Ukyo and RyoGA drew up beside him.

"To talk." Sylia open a private comline to Nene, who was peeking out from behind her. "Why is that one glowing?"

"I'm picking up a massive energy build-up. He might be getting ready to release it," Nene reported.

Meanwhile Ranma observed their rescuers properly for the first time. He glanced out of the corner of his eye at Ukyo. "Okay Ucchan, who are they?"

"From what I read on the Usenet, I'd guess they're the Knight Sabres--"

From her left Shampoo snorted. "Shampoo guess, moment they said it."

"They're a mercenary group," Ukyo emphasised, continuing, "although they also do some vigilante work against Genom."

Ranma turned his full attention to the four women before him once more. "Okay, you want to talk, talk!"

"We are greatly interested in why you are here Guardian," she indicated the reamins of the battle. "And obviously we're not the only ones."

"Don't give out info for free. Not to sprites that don't even show their faces." Ranma gave her a quirky smile. "Good friend taught me that."

There was a pregnant pause, then Sylia slowly raised her arm and gasped the front of her helmet. It was perhaps one of the hardest things she'd done, trusting a sprite with this secret.

"Sylia, are you sure?" Priss whispered, not taking her eyes off the young sprites before her.

"I think we have to," her leader replied, and pushed up the faceplate.

Ranma acknowledged her with a nod. "Shampoo, holster it. RyoGA, power down." The pair reluctantly did as they were told.

"Nene, Priss, Linna, faceplates up please." Equally reluctantly the three Knight Sabres revealed their faces.

Ranma stepped forward, covering half the distance between them slowly. "Name's Ranma Saotome, Guardian number 698. These are my travelling companions, Shampoo, RyoGA Hibiki and Ukyo Kuonji."

"It is you!" Linna exclaimed pointing at Ukyo, and then covered her mouth with her metal hands. She promptly found herself the centre of attention. "She... she used to process here, in this system. She was our shining star in algorithmics."

"That's impossible." Ranma, as was his wont, leapt to his friends defence. "Only system Ucchan's lived in crashed megacycles ago."

Sylia looked from her friend to the shocked young lady standing across the way. "This system did crash," she informed him calmly. "It corrupted our net protocols beyond repair and took us off the net. That happened ten megacycles ago."

"The right time," Ukyo whispered, ignoring the fact that everyone was now looking at either her or Linna. She wandered over to the edge of the roof and gazed out across the city. "Am I home?"

*****

Deciding that the rooftops were not a safe place to have an extended discussion, the Knight Sabres and the Gamers repaired to Sylia's garage and the facility the mercenaries kept under it. After the swapping of life stories only Ranma and Sylia seemed ready to trust the others, with Ukyo still off in another little world. The two leaders stood watching her from across the room where the others argued.

"You care about her," Sylia said. Definitely a statement, not a question.

"Yeah, she may be a rogue, a hacker and a thief, but she's also a good and loyal friend. I never knew she lost her entire family at six, not like that."

"It was bad luck that had her out of the system on her own when the system crashed. A terrible coincidence, but there's no way to tell if her process would have been better." Sylia sighed. "Too many sprites were deleted in that crash, we all lost family."

"Ya know what's worse, we made her perform in an algorithmics competition some time back. Must have brought back some painful memories. Especially since she must have blamed it for her not being here."

They looked again across at Ukyo where she sat staring out the window at the city beyond. "And you leave with the next game?"

"That's the way we go. Can't risk there not being another one. Mainframe's our home now and we swore to get back," Ranma turned his gaze to the other's fighting over who would have won the rooftop battle. "Gotta keep the hope up."

"Keep throwing one liners like that and I might believe you." Sylia smiled at the young sprite. "So what will you do while you're here?"

"Well, I feel like throwing a monkey wrench into the plans of these Genom bastards." Ranma's confident smile reappeared. "I don't like people that delete innocents." Despite the change in topic, Ranma still found his gaze sliding over to the girl sitting at the window.

*****

Laughter echoed off the gleaming marble walls of the massive hall. The little girl ran amongst the chairs, dodging and weaving, every so often doing an impromptu series of flips. Her hair was short, to keep it from getting in her way as she performed. Continuing to play those games only the young are capable of she ran up to three sprites that stood watching her.

Two were humanoid, man and wife, and dressed in formal kimono. They regarded the girl with a mixture of pride and sadness.

"Isn't this place neat mommy?" the girl cried, skidding to a stop and bouncing on her feet.

"Yes dear, it is," the woman replied, her voice rich and formal. She turned to the third adult in the group. He was a zero binome, wearing a baseball cap and a sweater with the word "coach" emblazoned on it. "You will look after our dear like Ukyo, won't you?"

"Ah course ma'am," the binome replied. "I'll treat 'er like mah own."

The woman returned her attention to the girl. "Now Ukyo, you be good and do your best." She knelt and placed her hands on her daughter's shoulders. "I'm sure you'll bring us back a nice big trophy." She leant forward and gave the girl a kiss on the forehead.

"I will mommy!"

"I'll miss you little one," the father said from above.

"Now, now, no need ta get all weepy," the binome fussed, "we're only gonna be gone for a few milliseconds. Be back afore you know it."

"Bye, bye mommy and daddy." The girl waved back as she was lead away to the waiting ship.

*****

The door to the hotel room slammed open, and a massive structure of gleaming metal swayed hurriedly in through the doorway. "Look coach, I WON!" the girl cried, putting down the trophy. "First in my age category! Mummy's gonna be so proud!"

Her joy was not mirrored in the face of the binome. He threw a PADD onto the bed. "Ukyo honey, come here please. I have... some bad news."

The girl sidled forward, subdued by the binomes expression. "What's wrong?"

"It... I... I don't know how to saw this sweetly, so I'm gonna be blunt. Ukyo, our system's crashed."

"Crashed? What about mommy and daddy? My friends?"

"Gone. The entire system has been deleted. I'm... I'm sorry," he couldn't look her in the eyes.

"NOO! IT'S NOT FAIR!" Crying the little girl spun and dashed out the door. If she heard the coach calling to her, she didn't listen.

*****

"Ucchan." Ranma's soft voice and his hand on her shoulder startled Ukyo. She looked around, realising she was back in the comfortable apartment, with the Knight Sabres and the others looking on.

"What is it Ranma?" she inquired, shaking the memories out of her head.

Ranma jerked his finger at the others. "We're gonna go give Genom a little pain, you want in?"

"Least I can do for my old system."

The eight sprites gathered around a table window to view Sylia's briefing. Calmly she called up an image of a large building, obviously a factory. Immediately the window started a fly-by, showing the structure in its totality, from the smokestacks to the loading bays, and then started the sequence again.

"This is one of Genom's research and production facilities. Officially they build numerous home appliances there, but my sources tell me the output is next to nothing. It's logical to assume that it is more than it appears." Sylia tapped an icon on the window. The first image vanished and a three dimensional wire-frame of the buildings zoomed out. "I managed to get system plans for the building. The heavy equipment and shielding on some of the labs," she pointed to various spots on the map, "is unnecessary for appliances--"

"Shampoo not so sure, you no see some of the appliances she has."

Sylia spared the amazon a glare before continuing. "That aside, this has to be one of their buma design and production facilities. Unfortunately the security is tough, and the four of us were unlikely to get in. Primarily my concern was hacking. Once we were inside we would need to tie down two security nodes in order to collect the data we need, and Mackie's loader would be incapable of reaching either location."

"But Ucchan is another matter," Ranma interjected, his friend nodding her agreement.

"Right. Beyond that, should we trip the security system, the main computer would probably activate the bumas and neither pair would cope with that." Sylia touched the window again, lighting up two spots. "I suggest Nene, along with three others, heads to the research data annex, while Ukyo takes the production area. While Ukyo runs shotgun, Nene will download the data into her hardsuit's on board file folders. Then the group in the production facility will do some structural damage to disguise the reason for the intrusion."

Ranma stood considering the map arms crossed. "A pair from each group?" Ranma asked and watched the others acknowledge that. "RyoGA, go with Ukyo, you're our heavy hitter and I'm sure you'll have so much fun blowing things up." He turned to Sylia. "Who out of you're lot are with them?"

"Nene's team will require more stealth, so I'd best join you and her. Priss, think you and Linna can get along with them?"

"So long as I'm not on the bimbo's team, I'm fine!" The singer sneered.

"Shampoo no bimbo!" the amazon objected. "She just talk that way," she added grumpily.

Ranma turned to Ukyo. "Ucchan, keep an eye on the RyoGA would you? We don't him to go missing and have to search the system again."

Suddenly Linna appeared next to them. "What's this?"

"Game sprite have very bad sense of direction," Shampoo offered helpfully.

"Game sprite?"

"Is long story."

*****

Strangely, in a city as dark and dingy as Megatokyo, not a single sprite saw anything out of place about the grey truck sitting a block away from the factory. It was large, armoured, in one piece and had yet to attract a single spot of graffiti. In this city, it should have stood out like a shinning beacon, yet everyone just ignored it. Perhaps their survival instincts were too refined. Or maybe it had something to do with the disgruntled looking teenager leaning against the side.

RyoGA looked up in time to see Ranma stroll casually around the corner. "What's it look like?"

"Pretty standard. Once the security's down it should be a breeze," the Guardian replied. "Over the wall and in through the door, just like Sylia planned. How are the girls going?"

RyoGA jab his thumb over his shoulder. "They're changing inside."

Accepting that with a nod Ranma leapt up onto the van's running board. The young man sitting at the wheel recoiled in surprise. "Geese don't do that!"

A glance at the trunks control console proved... enlightening. "You know, I don't think you sister would approve of you watching them. Especially seeing as those soft suits aren't loaded on their Icons."

Immediately the colour palette of Mackie's cheeks reddened. "Ah... Umm..."

"Just don't let them catch you." Ranma vanished once more.

Many Nanoseconds later the back doors of the truck swung open, revealing four hardsuited heroines and another two women warriors. Shampoo and Priss were the first down onto the ground, followed by Ukyo and Nene and then finally Linna and Sylia. Ranma and RyoGA joined them, closing the doors as they went.

"We hacked the security system Ranma honey," Ukyo informed him. "It'll be down for approximately eight more nanos."

"Then let's move!"

Everyone nodded. "RIGHT!"

*****

As Ranma had predicted, after Ukyo and Nene had performed their magic over the security, getting into the complex was easier than feeding an energy shake to a null. Once inside the group divided into two, heading off after their particular goals.

The team lead by Sylia stealthily made their way through a data processing office. Dark windows and keypads hovered over desks, awaiting the return of their operators at the beginning of the next cycle. Every so often the four warriors scrambled for the shadows within the cubicles as a security drone rumbled past.

"Droids not smart," Shampoo commented as one trundled out of hearing range. She knelt behind one of the partitions, her gun held up next to her face.

"No personality chip," Sylia replied, her voice masked by the suit's synthesisers. "Genom may be powerful, but they're more than willing to skimp on costs."

Ranma looked back from his position on point. "That doesn't make a lot of sense. Personality chips aren't that rare."

"On the net, maybe not, but here we've had a strange shortage in them," Sylia replied. "They've all been used in the bumas. Let's get moving."

Stealthily the four crept through the complex, coming at last to the corridor that led to the data banks. Ranma glanced around the corner. It was thin and long, with just enough room to walk one abreast, but leaving no room to dodge, and lots of room to cover. He quickly jerked back.

"Okay, what's the readme on this one. It feels like a trap." He looked to Sylia.

"I'm sure there is." Sylia jerked her head towards the entrance. "Nene, scan it."

The hacker exchanged places with Ranma, positioning one of her "ears" so it poked around the edge. A slight whirr accompanied it opening and a small camera lens folded out. "There's a scanner at the far end, and blasters arrayed all over the place. I think the process is self-contained. Only weak point is the scanner."

"Is shootable?" the amazon asked.

"Nope, energy dissipater immediately under it. The bolt would just vanish."

Ranma glanced at the corridor entrance. "Any blind spots?"

"About ten pixels at roof level."

A big grin broke across Ranma's face. "That's all I need." Before anyone could stop him he leapt upwards into corridor.

"My god, I've never seen anyone move like that," Nene gasped, her scanner still poking around the corner. "He's actually braced himself against the walls and is inching his way down the corridor. I'd have thought that was impossible!"

Shampoo sighed. "Ranma always do impossible. Is why Shampoo love him."

*****

The heels of her boots rested on the console before her. She lay back in the chair, hands cupped behind her head, watching the three dark windows before her. There was no sign of any network activity; the building was completely dead.

According to Sylia, there was a minor hole in the database's security protection. It was possible to confuse the system, allowing access to files without a password. Unfortunately you could only take advantage of that from the control chamber of the main factory, a place you couldn't get the files from. And that was the main reason the Knight Sabres hadn't moved on their own.

The slight clank of metal on grill alerted Ukyo to a presence approaching her from behind. "Where's your friend?" Priss asked, her voice covered by a metallic ring.

Ukyo shifted so she could see the blue suit out the corner of her eye. "He decided to go take a look around. Linna's with him."

"Hopefully they won't get into trouble." Priss stepped up next to her and looked at the windows. "No word from the others?"

"Not a peep, but they've got the hard part," Ukyo returned her gaze back to the windows. "Be more security over there, information is where the money really is when it comes to hacking."

"You've been hacking for a long time."

"Ten megacycles." A touch of sadness crept into Ukyo's voice.

"Oh, since..." Priss left it hanging.

The pair stood in an awkward silence for a while. It was a silence that was finally broken by Priss. "Nene says she's ready and in position."

Ukyo slipped her feet off the console and popped upright. "Okay, beginning obfuscation!" Her fingers started dancing as letters and numbers flowed across the windows.

*****

"Hi gang!" Ukyo cried as her window appeared in the database annex. The four sprites were crammed into the small room, Shampoo and Ranma at the door while Sylia stood over Nene at the console. The smaller Knight Sabre had run wires ports on her chest-plate to the computer before her. "You ready to start having fun?"

"Is it safe to have an open vid window?" Sylia asked, leaning forward.

On the window Ukyo shrugged. "I needed a data stream and we might as well use this. Don't worry about recordin's, I plan to spike this system sooo badly that you won't be able to use it as a calculator!"

Nene sniggered, then rested her hands on the console in front of her. "Okay, you start shifting and I'll download."

"Right, first stop is the register at oh-aye-six."

*****

The ringing of metal on metal echoed off the towering shapes of the hardware about them. Monstrous devices used in the creation of artificial processes whose sole purpose was destruction. Linna let her sensors range about, automatically pointing out possible directions of attack, and keeping track of the unusual sprite she was following.

"What are you looking for?" Linna asked, moving up next to him.

RyoGA stopped and looked over one of the machines. "Best places to do damage," he replied. "That is the reason I'm here."

"Oh." She looked around. "What are going to use? Explosives?"

RyoGA turned and started walking again. "Nah, I thought I'd just hit a few points with an energy blast. With a little planning I could probably bring down the roof."

"Well, don't do that, we'll still be under it!"

RyoGA stopped suddenly. "What is that?!" He pointed to a massive tube resting not far away. A soft glow pierced the covering, illuminating a large figure held inside. The two sprites stepped up to it and found themselves staring up at a shape over double their size.

Linna took another step forward and wiped away the film of beaded energy covering the surface. She looked up and in, trying to look in. "Uh-oh, we may have a problem."

*****

"Another one?!" Sylia's exclamation brought the attention of both Ranma and Shampoo.

Over the hardsuit's comm Linna continued. "Yes, it looks just like that red superbuma that had the magnetic generator installed in it, down to the colour of its armour. Only it's much, much bigger."

Sylia turned to the pink Knight Sabre before her. "Nene, do a search for information on this new superbuma."

"WOE THERE PARDNER," Ukyo exclaimed from the window, her body still twitching as she typed hurriedly. "This download is hard enough, we can't go searching the data. I'm pretendin' we're just doing routine system maintenance, and yah just don't do that any method but sequentially."

"So, drop the download and search for the info, it may be more important," Sylia commanded.

Ukyo shrugged. "Then there's nah point in stoppin' the download, gonna take us just as long as a sequential search. What's the problem? We'll get the data, it'll just be later."

"The last one of these we fought almost destroyed us, and it wasn't as big. I want to know what this one is capable of!"

"An' patience is a virtue," Ukyo replied. "This ain't somethin' you can hurry."

"She's right Sylia, we can't do it any other way."

"What superbuma?" Ranma interjected, appearing beside Sylia.

Sylia turned her head to look at him. "Your friend and Linna have stumbled on what looks to be a prototype of a new weapon Genom is compiling up."

"Is it active?"

"No."

"Then we can wait." He vanished back to the door.

"Infuriating, ain't he." Ukyo grinned from the window.

*****

Linna found it disturbing to be watched by the young sprite. He seemed... impatient, yet calm, not a nice combination. It reminded her of holding ticking delete command and being unable to read the timer. Finally Sylia came back with an answer.

"We're going to wait until they've finished the download before doing anything," Linna replied.

RyoGA acknowledge with a nod. "Tell them to signal us when they're ready. I'll blast this thing first."

"Right!"

The long nanoseconds drew out and it wasn't long before Linna felt the need to break the silence. "So, why are you doing this? The game jumping I mean."

The silence settled back in again as RyoGA just stared off into space. "If you asked Ranma he'd say he wanted to get home, but me, I wanna see Akane again."

Linna cocked her head to one side. "Akane? She's your girlfriend?"

A look of anger passed over RyoGA's face. "Nah, she's going to be linked to Ranma."

"I thought either Shampoo or Ukyo had something for Ranma."

The other sprite snorted. "He cares as much for them as he does Akane. Not a bit!"

"I find that hard to believe," Linna commented. "You all seem at ease taking orders from him, and you can't earn that without at least respecting those under you."

"Oh, he's a great leader, good at fighting and ideas. But he's also a JERK!" RyoGA's vehemence caused Linna to recoil. "Thanks to HIM I'm stuck with a corruption! Not to mention I'm more lost than EVER!"

"Ummm, okay." It occurred to Linna that she really shouldn't have started this discussion. Thankfully she was saved by another communication. "Nene and Ukyo are finished. We can start the destruction whenever you're ready!"

A feral grin replaced the anger on RyoGA's face. "Great." He stretched his arms and cracked his knuckles. "Let's have some fun!" He took up a stance that, to Linna, didn't look very suitable for an attack. His legs were parted, feet solidly on the ground, as if to steady himself and he was gazing down at his hands cupped before his stomach. Slowly his form was covered by a soft purple glow, the same one she'd seen on the rooftop and, she realised, every time she saw a game cube.

"SHISHIHOUKODAN!" RyoGA cried, shoving his hands outwards towards the tube. The glow turned into a massive column of energy, pulsating like a game cube, that stabbed through the air and smashed into the tube. Hissing the top of the tube fell away, sliding off the edge of beam.

"Wow," was all Linna could manage, then; "Uh-oh."

The superbuma was still standing there. Only now, it was looking at them.

*****

"LINNA, LINNA, what was that!" Sylia's stance yelled her worry, even if they hadn't been able to hear her voice.

"What's the matter?" Ranma demanded.

"She said something about the superbuma, then got cut off."

"Jamming's active, something is cutting off all communication protocols in this sector," Nene reported. "I think they might have tripped something."

"I vote we drop subtle, let's do direct!"

Sylia nodded. "That may be best. Nene plot the quickest route."

"Shortest distance between two points is straight line," Shampoo said, lifting her gun. "We shoot our way through."

*****

A flash of light and the two long stands wove themselves around the massive arm. With a quick jerk of her head Linna caused them to constrict and... fall straight off. "SPAM!" The superbuma's fist plowed straight into her stomach, smashing her back into a pile of crates. Winded she paused for a moment amidst the shattered remains and watched RyoGA charge the thing again.

The game sprite's fist struck out, hitting the massive humanoid bot straight in the back of the knee. It was a sucker punch, but RyoGA wasn't above using it. However as his strike collided he felt no give. A sudden sense of doom caused him to dive out of the way, just as the thing's fist impacted on the ground.

Ignoring the large dents in the floor the pair launched into the attack once more. Linna sprayed it with shots from her palm cannon which harmlessly dissipated on its armour while RyoGA drew his sword and struck out at the buma's ankle.

The air filled with screeching as structure part and RyoGA held up the hilt of his sword. "It broke my sword!" An open palm blow collected him and sent him flying into Linna.

Struggling in a pile the two scrambled up, until RyoGA realised that his hand was rest on the breast of Linna's hardsuit. "Hehe, nice armour," he commented lamely.

"Get off me!" Linna shoved him away.

Meanwhile the superbuma had taken this time to extrude its laser from its mouth. The pair of sprites danced away as lances of energy struck out at them.

"STARMIE! Quick attack!"

"HUP!" A blur flew from the darkness, and across the superbuma's stomach, sending sparks flying. The ten-pointed star bounced away its tips glowing red from heat.

"OH MY..!" Ukyo stood not far away, atop one of the machines. The superbuma had escaped the attack untouched.

Laser blasts lanced out, and Ukyo leapt upwards, pirouetting out of the way. She landed next to Linna. "How are we supposed to beat this thing!"

"Last time we used the knuckle bombers on the things neck, after we decapitated it!"

Meanwhile Priss was carefully taking aim from the shadows. Mentally, she carefully squeezed the trigger and a blast shot from her palm gun, stabbing out at the buma's head. Energy exploded, consuming the head and sending the robot stumbling backwards. "SPAM!" she swore as the light faded, the head remained intact.

Ukyo screamed, sending a brace of mini-spatulas arcing through the air, only to bounce noisily off the buma's chest. Ignoring the attack the superbuma spun on Priss, lashing out. The heavy weapon's specialist just had time to leap away before the machine she was on crumpled beneath the onslaught.

"We could use a miracle about now!" Priss cried, landing and firing off her three needlers. Once again the needles simply fell away from its armour.

Suddenly the wall exploded outwards, showering the area in shards of structure and filling the air with random bits of energy. "Never fear, Shampoo here!" The amazon sprite stepped out of the fading blast, gun held at the ready

"Stop showing off and blast that thing!" Ranma exclaimed leaping from the hole, and onto the battlefield.

Back in the corridor beyond Sylia turned to Nene. "Find the plans for the superbuma and locate a weak spot. We'll keep it busy!"

"I'm already on it!" the pink Knight Sabre whined.

Back in the battle Ranma was hopping around the creature punching at critical points on its body. His blows were only serving to infuriate the buma more.

Grunting RyoGA lifted a large metal crate above his head. "That thing is impervious!" He threw the crate, which shattered on the buma's body, causing it to stagger.

"Watch it dog-boy, you could've have hit me with that!" Ranma directed another quick series of punches into its face.

Using Ranma as a distraction Linna leapt forward, a flick of her head sending her ribbons snaking out again. This time they wrapped about the hip joint, but once again slipped free without leaving a mark.

"Listen up everyone!" Nene called. "There's a weak point under the armour leaves below its chest. If you can cause the back to arc you can shove a knuckle bomber up and blow the whole chest off."

Without acknowledging Nene's help Sylia moved forward to join the fray, a soft whine accompanying the powering up of the explosive domes on her fist. Her sudden arrival caught the superbuma by surprise and she quickly found herself presented with the superbuma's back. She looked beyond, watching for the time to strike.

Priss was extracting herself from a pile of crates, moving with exaggerated care. Obviously her wounds kept her out of such a risky manoeuvre. Shampoo, Ukyo and RyoGA were immediately discounted as they were outside of range and didn't have knuckle bombers anyway. Only Ranma and Linna were within the buma's reach.

"Linna, you take the front. I'll hit the small of the back. Get ready to hit." Sylia leapt forward.

As her outstretched fist approached its target, things seemed to slow down. First she saw Ranma land before the thing's legs, then what seemed like a nano later the superbuma's forearm collected Linna, sending her flying off into the darkness. Sylia's fist contacted metal as energy poured explosively out. Sure enough the superboma back shot forward, leaving the weak point exposed.

A look of determination crossed Ranma's features and he leapt into an uppercut. "YAAAAHHH!!" For a moment Sylia could have sworn she saw silver lightning crackling about his fist as he rose, then the blow slid beneath the armour and the system exploded in blinding white light.

An instant later a blow to the back snapped Sylia awake as she struck the wall. She collapsed forward, leaving the wall with a spider's web of cracks. Across the battlefield a red-haired girl picked herself up from amidst the wreckage of hardware. "I gotta remember how to do that punch." Ranma-chan swayed groggily as she stepped forward.

In the centre of the ruins of the factory stood the smoking remains of superboma, it's upper torso gone. One of the arms had been thrown clear across the factory and now lay imbedded in the wall of the control room. As they watched the legs teetered forward and collapsed to the ground.

Ukyo and Shampoo appeared at Ranma's side, helping him to stay up. "Is airen okay?" Shampoo inquired.

"Yeah Ranma honey, that was some blast yah took."

"Just give me a few mom--"

An alarm klaxon whooped, interrupting Ranma. Its source wasn't the security system, which Ukyo had already dealt to, instead it came from outside the factory.

"Warning: Incoming Game." The harsh voice hissed again.

Ranma snapped out of his daze and spun on Shampoo. "Where's it landing?!"

Shampoo gazed about, squinting with her cyber eye, before stopping looking straight up. "Here, on this factory."

Another feral grin took over Ranma's face and he turned to Sylia. "Are you girl's capable of getting out from under the game?"

Quickly accessing the state of her comrades, Linna and Nene seemed fine and were helping the injured Priss, Sylia nodded. "Yes, why?"

"I don't feel much like fighting the User, so I thought we'd just hole up somewhere and ride the game out. Kill two nulls with one stone, kinda thing."

Understanding Sylia nodded. Losing the game would mean the destruction of the factory. "Good luck finding your system." The four Knight Sabres limped away, leaving the others to their game.

Ranma turned to Ukyo. "Are you sure you don't want to stay? It is your home."

The hacker gazed after the four hard suited warrior women for a while. "No Ranma, that system quit file ten megacycles ago. Mainframe's my home now!"

A purple wall of energy passed over them.

*****

Sylia stood atop the building, watching the ADCPU swarming about the base of the pulsating purple cube. Thankfully they'd arrived too late to enter the cube.

"Game over. User wins."

The game shot into the sky, leaving behind a massive hole cut deep into the system and carrying the gamers off to another adventure. Somehow Sylia knew she hadn't seen the last of those four.


	7. v 2,3,1

Wild Boot: THe Net Games

By David Farr

Tenchi Muyo is copyright of AIC: Pioneer LDC, INC. ReBoot is the property of Mainframe. Ranma 1/2 is copyrighted by Rumiko Takahashi/Shogakukan,Inc. All are used here respectfully for the purposes of fanfiction. This story may be redistributed only if unchanged and no fee is charged.

*****

The relative quiet of the soaring towers of Mainframe's factory district was shattered by the sudden appearance of the system's Guardian cadet, zooming by on her zip-board. Leaning to one side, Akane yawed away, dodging a series of file-lock blasts.

"Halt Akane Tendo!" Sasuke cried, hanging on to the side of the first ABC for dear life.

"Surrender or we'll have to use force!" Gosunkugi exclaimed from a similar position on a second.

Akane stuck out her tongue gave them the red eye over her shoulder. "You'll have to catch me first!"

Sasuke looked over at his partner. "Did you see what she did?"

"That was... that was RUDE!" Gosunkugi was nodding comically.

"GET HER!" the pair chorused.

Akane dove downwards, weaving in and out of the buildings, followed closely by the two ABCs. She raced under a bridge and pulled up sharply, coming to rest next to her red mecha. "Now Fuchikoma!"

Obediently the mecha stretched out its manipulators and tracked the two ABCs as they shot out from beneath the bridge. Blazing energy spat from its palm cannons, accurately slamming into the engine pods of the vehicles. Smoking, with the two bots wailing and still hanging on, the ABCs arced downwards and exploded violently against a wall.

"Come on Fuchikoma, let's go home."

"Yes ma'am!"

*****

Fuchikoma: I came from the games,

Battling robots, cyborgs and terrorists,

To fight for this Sprite

Akane Tendo.

*****

v 2.3.1: Gathering Storm.

*****

Kuno, obsessive, but brilliant, virus of Mainframe stood admiring his latest masterpiece. Its form was perfect; from the large hose snaking out from the huge pump to the two large containers of dark seething green and red energy perched above and the currently deflated bag hanging limply from one end. Yes, it was indeed his best work, in both form and function.

Behind him the elevator whirred up into place, causing him to start to turn. "So you have managed to bring me the fair..." his words trailed off as he caught sight of the bot parts lying on the platform. "I see you have failed me again."

"Err... not so much failed..." Gosunkugi began his head dome not able to do much more than talk.

"Just not succeeded," Sasuke continued, eyeing the grasping hand lying in front of his hands and trying to figure out who owned it.

"Yeah, yeah, that's it, we have not yet begun to fight!"

Kuno sighed and rested his forehead in his hand. "Imbeciles."

*****

The view from the top of the Principal Office was incredible. You could see the entire system; from the access bridges immediately below to Lost Angles and from Silicon Tor all the way to Kits sector, where once Ranma had an apartment. There was peace, that Akane could be thankful for. No more rampaging monsters, the last one, Miss Hinako, was now spending her time teaching. No signs of virals either, thankfully.

A pair of metal hands slapped across the Guardian cadet's eyes. "GUESS WHO!"

Akane didn't bother guessing, instead she grabbed and flipped her assailant. She gasped as she saw the red bug mecha arc over her head.

"I can see my house from heeerreee!" Fuchikoma cried as it dropped out of sight.

"Oh, Fuchikoma!" Akane scrambled to the edge of the roof. Below she saw the mecha stand up, shake itself and scuttle away.

"That was a mean thing to do. It was only trying to cheer you up," comment a snide voice. Akane turned to find Nabiki hovering a little further up the domed roof on a zip-board.

"It surprised me!"

Nabiki tilted the board forward slightly, floating down the roof to hover before her. "I believe that was the idea. Hope you didn't hurt it too much."

Placing her hands upon her hips, Akane glared at her sister. "What did the two of you come up here for?"

"To break you out of your funk." Nabiki grinned. "I thought you might want to join me for a quantum shake at Al's. You've been sitting up here staring out into drive space for most of the cycle."

Long moments passed as Akane stared at her sister, trying to figure out what angle she was trying to push. Finally it occurred to her that it didn't really matter.

*****

The arena was a simple sphere, funnel-like goals at either end. Nabiki floated before one and Akane the other. Both wore padded outfits, designed to take the impacts of an energy ball and held a long thin scoop in one hand.

Playfully, Akane tossed her scoop from one hand to the other. "One more point and I win," she grinned.

"Don't gloat sis, I bet you at the strategy game earlier!" Nabiki had squatted in mid-air, blocking as much of her goal with her body.

The buzzer sounded and a funnel on the ceiling spat out a glowing ball. It bounced of the wall and was hooked into Nabiki's scoop. Immediately she heaved it across the room, rebounding it off the mid-point towards her sister.

Akane effortlessly collected the shot in her own scoop, and threw it back. Watching it streak past her, way off the mark, Nabiki wondered what her sister was up to. The wall gave a slight "thung" as the ball struck and arced back towards Akane.

Catching the ball again, the youngest Tendo daughter threw it, aiming towards the edge of her sister's goal. Nabiki dove to the side, the scoop grazing the edge of the ball, just barely altering the vector. Reflected again, the ball bounced back to Akane, who moved out to grab it. With an expert flick she sent the ball soaring again.

Moments too late Nabiki realised she had over extended herself and dove to intercept, bearly missing. Dismayed, she watched the ball spiral down the funnel into her goal.

A buzzer sounded the point and the end of the game.

"Wanna go again?" Akane asked, eagerly floating from side to side.

Nabiki hovered, panting. "No thanks, I think you've worn me out. How about we go for a snack?"

"Okay," Akane jetted over to her. "Al's or the Nekohanten?"

"Nekohanten," her sister replied. "We don't have time to wait for a meal at Al's."

*****

Kasumi was busy. It was an almost constant state for her at the moment. Repairs to the system and the CPUs after Kuno's attack were going well. Personnel were not so easy to replace. As much as she wished otherwise the CPU binomes were far from being the most able of forces at the best of times, but with many of the veterans deleted in the last battle the level of skill was at an all time low.

"Enty, do you have the latest projections on the graduation of the current class of CPU cadets?" Kasumi asked, turning to her aide.

The nerdish binome straightened the frame of his glasses and stared at a PADD. "Yes ma'am, we should have at least another ten CPUs ready by ninety-five-forty. After that the next batch will be ready at," he hit the page down key a few times, "ah sixty-seventy next microsecond." He looked up helplessly.

"Is there anyway we can spare the resources to speed things up?" Kasumi inquired, worry creasing her normally calm face.

"Not really," Enty answered. "Besides they have a fairly high priority already, it's unlikely more resources will help. It's just, there is a minimum time that an upgrade can take."

Kasumi nodded. She'd known that, but she needed to hear it anyway. "Then we'll need to come up with a more imaginative solution. Enty, find me Doc, Cid, the Professor and Scotty. Have them meet me in my workroom at eight-five-hundred."

Enty's glasses slipped as he started in shock. "Your workroom?!"

*****

Mousse sat watching the corner booth with interest. Since arriving in Mainframe with his beloved, and now lost, Shampoo, he couldn't remember ever seeing any of the Tendo sisters spending quality time together. Nabiki and Kasumi had always been too busy managing the system while Akane spent a lot of time training or playing games. Yet now, within a matter of cycles he had been visited by all three of them, then the elder two and now the younger two seemed to be enjoying each other's company.

Between the sudden increase in viral activity and the loss of Shampoo and the others, things had become busy, and dangerous, within the system. Mousse was hardly surprised that Mainframe's most important family was becoming closer. It just disturbed him that Nabiki seemed to be making herself so invaluable to her sisters. That was unlike the mercenary he owed money to.

Deciding a little eavesdropping was in order, he quietly coasted along his rail towards them.

"I don't know, Mike looked kind of cute in the dress," Akane was saying.

"But FUCHIKOMA?" Nabiki demanded. "What was she thinking?"

"Who else were we going to get? Mousse?"

The two sisters looked at each other, then burst into laughter, an image of the file-server in a sailor-fuku springing into minds.

Mousse cleared his throat loudly. "Excuse me. Is there anything else you need?"

Neither girl could reply, their faces still contorted in barely controlled laughter. Both, however, managed to shake their heads, leaving Mousse to glide off once more. Behind him the pair exploded into gales of laughter once more.

*****

The door slid silently open, allowing the entrance into her cluttered workroom. There were three new inhabitants here for once, in the form of the four sprites she wished to converse with.

The first was a one binome who's hair stuck out as if it was carrying a static charge. The slightly crazed look on his face would not usually fill Kasumi with hope, yet she had to admit, Doc was one of the more imaginative inventors in Mainframe. She also noticed he still hadn't changed out of that old lab coat.

Second was the Professor, a zero binome. His name was Xander or something, she could never remember, but it began with X. Some accident in the past had deleted his legs, and now he hovered in a yellow metal chair everywhere he went. Not really a scientist, he was more of an ideas man, someone who would probably find unusual ways around a situation.

The one binome wearing the world war one pilot's uniform, complete with a goggle in his windswept hair, was Cid Highwind. His vehicular genius was undeniable, as was his skill with the pike. As the four turned to look at Kasumi he took a long puff on his cigar and blew a smoke ring in her direction.

The final member of the Kasumi's hand picked think tank was the numeral six. He spoke with a thick Scottish accent, and wore a red uniform with a triangular symbol emblazoned on the chest. For some reason she kept thinking of him as a member of security. Never the less he was a miracle worker when it came to systems engineering.

"Gentlemen." Kasumi stepped in, allowing the door to slide closed behind her. "I have called you here to discuss the continued defence of this system, specifically in regards to the virus Kuno."

Cid took his cigar from his mouth and blew another cloud of smoke. "Must be %$#*ing important to get us together down 'ere! You never let anyone into your &$%* lab!"

Kasumi didn't bat an eye at Cid's crude speech. "I've become aware of spies within my staff. The virus Kuno will know any plans I make through normal channels, and that means I need to start being sneaky."

"And we're supposed to sneak for you." The Professor looked less than pleased.

"Intellectually, yes, but it is on a Need to Know Basis. That means no one knows more than they need to, my sisters included."

"E'en Nabiki?" Scotty inquired.

"Especially Nabiki. Your resource budgets come from me, and if anyone complains or asks questions, tell them to take it up with me!"

All four sprites nodded, acknowledging her orders.

"We're getting ahead of ourselves." Doc interjected. "Define the problem and we'll find the solution."

Kasumi nodded. "Of course. The problem is this. Kuno's forces outnumber and outgun ours. While I'm sure we could hold out against his attacks, the cost, both in processes and resources, would be great. I find that unacceptable. What I want is a way to defuse the situation without losing any more sprites."

"Hmm, tough call," the Professor said thoughtfully.

"I have it!" Doc whipped out a file folder. In the display was something that looked like a colourful inverted Y. "If we install my Reality Distortion Engine in a hovercar, get Marty to fly it at eighty-eight kilopixels per nanosecond, he'll be catapulted back in time and can stop Kuno from ever compiling."

Kasumi shook her head. "No, thank you. I don't want to deal with the time paradox that would create."

Doc deflated. "Oh."

"Perhaps we can send a small group of powerful sprites to use a stealth jet to sneak into Silicon Tor and delete Kuno permanently," the Professor suggested.

A cloud of smoke wafted into the zero's face. "That would be *$%&ing great, if we had a &*$#ing stealth jet."

Kasumi nodded. "And the only person in the system you could possibly describe as powerful couldn't sneak to save her life." She sighed. "Even if she is my sister."

Cid thoughtfully took a draw on his cigar. "Now if I had a ship to begin with, I might be able to do something. The &*%$ing CPU cars are useless."

"Ukyo's vessel is still in the hanger, you might as well use that." Kasumi said, almost as an aside. "If you can get past the security systems that is."

"Oh, don't worry, I know a little lady who can get past anything."

"Well, requisition what you need." She turned to the final member of the think tank. "Any ideas Scotty?"

"Aye lassie, I do. But it's only a theory."

*****

The two sisters stepped out of the restaurant onto a strangely quiet Baudway. No vehicles hummed down its length and no binomes stood talking. Even the construction tent was missing, but neither Akane nor Nabiki noticed, their spirits were too high.

They did notice however when the area about them darkened. Suddenly a spotlight highlighted two binome silhouettes, one a zero, the other a one.

"Prepare for trouble!" a woman's announced.

The zero binome produced a rose and sniffed it. "And make that double!" It was a man.

Stepping forward, the one binome revealed she was wearing a white jacket and skirt with a black skintight shirt. A red letter R graced her chest. Her hair was swept this and that, ending up stabbing off to one side. "To protect the world from devastation!"

Her partner stepped forward, flourishing the rose. He also wore a white jacket with the letter R on it. The zero's blue hair hung down limply, covering the sides of his eyes. "To unite all peoples within our nation."

"To denounce the evils of truth and love!"

"To extend our reach to the stars above!"

The one binome stabbed her hand outwards. "Jessie!"

Drawing up next to his partner, the zero took another sniff of his rose. "James."

A large letter R appeared behind them, backed by a starscape. "Team Rocket blast off at the speed of light!"

"Surrender now, or prepare to fight!"

A strange cat creature dropped down between them, its paws raised in a begging gesture. "Mewoth! That's right!"

Akane turned to her sister. "Tell me these guys don't work for us." There was a pleading tone in her voice.

"They don't work for us." Worry had crept into Nabiki's voice.

The pair of binomes pulled out backpacks, slinging them onto their backs. Both whipped out hoses with wide cones on the end and waved at the two sisters. Laughter and a cloud wafted towards the pair.

Overcome by the gas, Nabiki slumped to the ground. Akane coughed as she forced herself to take a step forward and then another.

Team Rocket took a step back as Akane loomed over them, her hands reaching for their clothes. Both screamed as the Guardian's hand reached for them, and again when she fell.

"Mewoth, get her off us!" The pair cried from beneath the unconscious girl.

*****

Cid Highwind glanced nervously at his "security expert." The young zero binomes was dressed in tight fitting shirt and wore her large cross upon her back. She had always been an excited girl, sneaking, running and stealing everything that wasn't nailed down.

"Don't %$#* this one up girl!" the old pilot and engineer told her.

The girl rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Come on, how hard can it be?"

"This is UKYO'S ship! And she was the best &%$# hacker this system has every seen. Don't underestimate her!"

Yuffie stuck out her tongue at the older sprite, then pulled a small black box. She fiddled with a dial on top then pointed it at Ukyo's ship.

The headlights on the front of the ship flashed and it made a curious double beep. For long moments the pair watched it long sleek shape, waiting for some hint of trouble.

Yuffie tossed back her head and gave a happy bark of laughter. "See, I told so!"

Cid looked at Vertigo One thoughtfully. "I wouldn't have thought it would be so &%*$--" He was interrupted by a cannon dropping out from under the nose. It swivelled around and fired a huge jet of fire, leaving a crispy pair of binomes standing there. "-- easy," he groaned.

The pair collapsed into a heap on the ground.

*****

It felt like hordes of nulls were dancing on her head. So much so that she reached up to clear them off. The movement sent pain lacing through her head, forcing a groan from her lips.

"Ah, finally, the star has awakened!" She knew that voice, it was the most vile, horrendous sound she had every heard. It was Kuno.

"Great Kuno-baby, maybe you can explain why you sent those two morons after us." Nabiki, and she wasn't that far away from the virus.

Akane sat up and looked about. Her sister was standing next to the impressive figure of Kuno, glaring at him. Akane recognised the room as the same place she had been dragged when the henchbots had accidentally kidnapped her. Kuno's main work area high in the tower. It was nothing more than mesh platform with familiar machines resting about the edges. However there was one addition. A monstrous looking machine topped by a pair of energy vats.

'No Ranma to the rescue this time.' The thought made its way unwanted into her head. She apprehensively eyed the new addition to the virus' inventory. A bag easily big enough to hold a half dozen humanoid sprites, those seething vats of glowing energy, whatever it was, it wasn't good.

"My dear Indexer, I had absolutely no desire to see your lovely visage." No statement could be more sincere. "My business was entirely with your fair sister. However you may watch as I transform her into my loving accomplice!"

"NEVER!" Akane spat, leaping to her feet. The pair both glared at her.

Nabiki shifted her stance to stand hands on hips, glaring defiantly up at the virus. "She has a point. You can't force her to act against her code."

Their conversation was interrupted as another sprite appeared with a loud pop. All three stopped to examine her, confused by the sudden interruption.

The newcomer's bitmap was brown, and she wore a tight form-hugging uniform that made her look like a air hostess. In her hands she played with a small pink cube. "No, that's still not right," she announced, almost weeping, and twisted part of the cube. "Oh, I'll never get back now." And she vanished.

Kuno, Nabiki, and Akane stood staring at empty space for a moment, wondering if she would reappear.

Kuno shook his head to clear it. "Where were we?"

"I believe Akane had just vehemently denied that she could ever become your loving accomplice, and you were about to tell us your evil plan," Nabiki stated.

"Ah, of course." Kuno turned and strode across to his new piece of hardware. "This invention will allow me to warp that very code, bringing out her darkside and making her my willing BRIDE!" He laughed. "It is a pity that I have the resources for only one treatment, or else I would include you in this experiment."

Nabiki tutted and shook her head. "Kuno-baby, you have gone completely random!"

"WE SHALL SEE!" The virus gripped a massive lever hidden behind the machine. It fell into place with a loud clunk, and the roar of the machine starting drowned the echoes out.

Akane watched in horror as the hose shook and rose, taking on a life of its own. The mouth of the hose would easily swallow a sprite, and even as she stood there she could feel the wind of its suction whipping past her. Striking out like a cobra the hose dived towards her.

Gasping Akane threw herself to the ground, jamming her fingers between the wires of the mesh platform. The suction increased, lifting her feet and body off the ground, leaving her fingers as the only anchors. The thin wire bit into her fingers and she knew she wouldn't be able to hold.

"AKANE!" It was Nabiki, screaming above the sound of the vacuum. "PROTECT THE SYSTEM!" Out of the corner of her eye Akane saw her sister flash by.

Instinctively Akane's hand shot out, catching her sister's wrist. The sudden weight caused her to jerk, forcing the wires deeper into her finger. A gasp escaped her lips.

"Let me go!" Nabiki yelled.

"Not again!" Straining she started pulling her sister up.

Suddenly she felt Nabiki's fingernails digging into her wrist. "One of us is going in, and its not going to be YOU!"

The pain and pressure became too much for Akane, and her hand slipped open. "NOOOOOOOOO!"

Nabiki fell backwards, conviction showing on her face. The vacuum's roar quietened as she vanished into the hose. Moments later the limply hanging bag shot outwards as a humanoid shape was thrown in. Immediately the hose fell to the ground, dead once more. In the following silence the squelch of two plungers thrust the contents of the two vats into the machine could easily be heard.

Akane, her fingers still trapped in the mesh, watched as the murky green and blue energy filled and mixed within the ball, lifting it and the captive inside. Drops of energy rolled down her cheek.

"Not again," she whispered. "I've failed again."

A single pained scream seared the air and snapped Akane out of it. She leapt to her feet, her fists balling, ready to shatter the machine.

Kuno stepped between her and her target, energy sword raised. Behind him the machine started to sink into the floor. "Your sister has saved you, but I will not allow you to return the favour!" He dove forward, faster than Akane thought possible.

A loop of metal wire fell about her, tightened and jerk her into the air. "MA'AM!" Akane looked up, glad to see Fuchikoma, resting at the lip of the Tor's skylight.

She turned back to look down, the order to free Nabiki dying on her lips. The hardware had already sank into a depression in the floor, concealing it from the mecha's weapons. Defeated Akane knew she only had one option.

"Fuchikoma! Get us out of here!"

*****

Kasumi watched her sister and Fuchikoma mounting the steps to the Principal Office. Akane was in bad shape. Her feet scraped across the ground as she walked, and her head hung between slumped shoulders. It took her a long time to make her way up those steps, watched over by her mecha the whole time.

It was all Kasumi could do not to wince when Akane brought her eyes up. There was a haunted look, worse than what Kasumi had seen after Ranma's death. And self-loathing.

"Kasumi, I--"

"You can't blame yourself Akane, she sacrificed herself for you," Kasumi reached out and hugged her sister. "She knew the system needed you more than her, that she could be replaced while you couldn't."

"That's--"

The older sister pulled back, and smiled down. "We'll get her back," Kasumi continued, overriding Akane. "But first we have lots of work to do. Her access must be shut down. We can't risk Kuno using her against us." She turned and strode into the Principal Office.

"But..."

*****

Deep beneath Silicon Tor the pulsating cocoon rested atop a dais, watched by its creator. Its contents had curled into foetal position, floating in the disgusting mixture. A hundred nanos had passed with it resting there as it worked its horror on Nabiki Tendo.

Finally the figure inside stirred and reached out a hand. Long shards of metal pierced the skin of the bag, and sliced open disgusting material. Amidst a waterfall of foul energy she tumbled out and lay sprawled on the ground, gasping for breath.

Kuno stepped forward to admire his work. The most obvious change was her clothing. Gone was the respectable business suit, instead she was encased in jet-black skin-tight armour. As he watched she raised a hand to her face and seductively licked the energy off her shining metal claws. Finally she looked up at him, her eyes shining a deep red.

"So, Kuno-baby, wanna take over a system?" Nabiki inquired, evil dripping from her voice.

Kuno threw back his head and laughed.


	8. v 2,3,2

Wild Boot: The Net Games

By David Farr

Tenchi Muyo is copyright of AIC : Pioneer LDC, INC. ReBoot is the property of Mainframe. Ranma 1/2 is copyrighted by Rumiko Takahashi/Shogakukan,Inc. All are used here respectfully for the purposes of fanfiction. This story may be redistributed only if unchanged and no fee is charged.

*****

Ryoko: I slept in this system,

Through Upgrades, Powerdowns and Windows 95,

My Format?

I have no Format,

I am a software pirate,

Come from the web

*****

v 2.3.2: The Wild Hunt

*****

"After him, Ryo-Ohki!" Washuu stabbed her finger at the ball of random energy shown in the window.

"MYA MYA MYAAAA!" The cabbit turned web-ship spun and shot off after the vanishing Ryu-oh. Ryo-ohki's sudden acceleration sent those in her cabin tumbling across the deck.

Ryoko, hovering near the control panel, chuckled, gazing at the pile of arms and legs that lay against one wall. Flying had its advantages, and avoiding embarrassments like that was only one of them. Still, that princess was a little too close to her Tenchi.

"Oh my, er... could you get off me?" Mihoshi asked.

Sasami giggled while her sister and Mihoshi jostled to try and separate the three of them. "Where's Tenchi?" the little sprite asked suddenly.

In answer, a slight groan emerged from beneath the trio of girls. Moments later, Aeka screeched when she realised it had come from under her skirt. Sasami and Mihoshi were thrown clear, leaving Tenchi lying on the deck.

Her skirt clutched to her body, Aeka glared at the boy. Unfortunately, he was in no condition to defend himself. Dazed, his eyes were spinning, and a small droplet of energy was running from his nose.

Before Aeka could start scolding the young man, she was hoisted into the air. Ryoko appeared, her hand wrapped around the collar of the princess' robes. "Being a little forward aren't we Princess?"

Aeka sniffed. "What are you talking about?"

"You've only known my Tenchi for a nano and already you've shown him your panties!" the pirate sneered.

"I did... it wasn't... HOW DARE YOU?! I would never show Lord Tenchi my--"

"LORD TENCHI?!" Ryoko growled. She didn't notice Sasami drag the unconscious boy away. "What's with this LORD crap?!"

"If he can wield that sword, then he must a descendant of Yosho!"

Crackling energy formed around the cat-like space-pirate. "And you decided to sink your claws into MY Tenchi!" She pulled the princess closer her eyes alight with fire.

"YOUR TENCHI?!" Wooden logs appeared in the air about them.

Electricity jumped between the pair's eyes.

*THUNK* *THUNK* Two large beckoning cat statues fell upon the pair, dropping them to the ground.

Washuu, sitting in Ryo-ohki's crystal chair, floated over. "Now, now, girls, this is not the time to fight."

"Don't butt in MOM!" Ryoko snapped, the statue still resting on her head.

The red-haired scientist grinned at her daughter. "Oh, I just wanted to point out that we were about to enter system space."

One end of the room started to waver, then dissolved into silvery surface of the portal. Ryoko closed her eyes, dreading the upcoming wall. She always hated the sickening jerk of transition, of course the sickening jerk she called Mom wasn't much better.

*****

Tenchi sighed. The silence of the forest was shattered by the princess and the pirate arguing over him, despite the urgency everyone had expressed not nanos ago. He found it all hard to believe; sprites from the web, a dangerous viral sprite loose in his system, and to top it all off apparently he was the descendant of a lost Prince of some kind of web spanning network.

Aeka's sister Sasami seemed at irritated by the ongoing argument. The little girl wore a serious expression on her face, frowning at the pair. She was the first sprite he had ever seen with sky blue hair and dark blue skin. If she and Aeka were an indication, then the women of Jurai preferred long hair in pigtails. The cute little cabbit watched the battle of wills from atop her head.

Next to the young princess was Washuu, the greatest assembler on the web, if you believed her own readme. According to what he'd managed to pick up the red-haired "girl" had, several thousand megacycles earlier, created both Ryoko and Ryo-Ohki. She had used her own code for the basis of the pirates source and considered herself Ryoko's mother.

Tenchi sidled over to the assembler. "Excuse me, Miss Washuu--"

"You can call me little Washuu," she interrupted, smiling up at him. "After all, you did save my process on Ryu-oh."

Massaging the back of his neck in embarrassment, Tenchi continued. "Ah, okay little Washuu, tell me, who is this Kagato we're all chasing?"

"Well, I first met him just over two gigacycles ago. He came to me as a student at the Science Academy. I saw some promise in him, so I decided to help him in some extracurricular studies. What I didn't see was his well-hidden desire for power. Once he thought he had learnt all he could from me, he put me in a file lock and corrupted my .plan for Ryoko.

"Thankfully, Mihoshi there," she indicated the sprite that was busy trying to play peacemaker by inserting herself between the quarrelling pair, "stumbled across my prison and broke me free. Aeka and Sasami joined us not long after, looking for Yosho. Seeing as their best lead was Ryoko, and she was locked up here so that Kagato couldn't control her, they agreed to help stop him.

"But we don't know much beyond that. There's no record of him before he entered the academy and he disappeared for a while right before Mihoshi rescued me. All we know is he wasn't on the web." Washuu shook her head. "He's very powerful, and we'll have to be very careful." She grinned suddenly. "But I'm sure we can do it!"

Beeping emitted by the assembler interrupted further conversation. She patted herself down for a few seconds, then produced a small paddle with a long pair of bunny ear antenna. "Hmm. Aeka, I'm getting a signal from Ryu-oh."

"You are?!" Aeka was suddenly standing over the assembler, leaving Ryoko threatening empty space.

She orientated herself and gazed off into the forest. "Yes, it's that away. Come it looks like it'll be a long walk."

Once Tenchi, with a little misguided help from Mihoshi, introduced the web sprites to the concept of zip-boards, the long walk turned into a short flight. Sasami laughed as she wove in and out amongst the trees, flying circles about he more slowly moving sister. Meanwhile, Ryoko flew staring up at the tree canopies, reclining in the empty air and phasing through the trees as she came to them.

"Wheeeeeee," Sasami cried, ducking under Ryoko to skid in front of Tenchi. "Thanks Tenchi. My nanny at the palace would never let me have fun like this!"

"That is true," Aeka pulled up alongside him. "It would be most unsightly for a princess of Jurai to be seen cavorting like that."

"Um.. excuse me," Mihoshi murmured in a failed attempt to get some attention.

"Hey, Princess, loosen up and let her enjoy herself. She doesn't have to be as stuck up as you," Ryoko taunted.

Aeka sniffed. "It is no business of yours, web creature! Sasami is a Princess of the Jurai Network, she is supposed to the image of poise and refinement."

Ryoko chuckled. "Oh, I'm sure she'll be a work of ART. As incompatible as you."

"HOW, how dare you?!" Aeka spluttered. "To compare me to such a low-res format!"

"Excuse me." Mihoshi tried again.

"Now-now, girls," Washuu floated down between them. "No fighting, save it for Kagato."

"EXCUSE ME!" Mihoshi wailed, finally getting everyone's attention. There was a collective facefault as they spotted her flying upside down, feet still firmly planted on the zip-board. "Could someone tell me how I did this?" she inquired looking about.

"I'd worry about the energy rushing to her head," Washuu mumbled, "but there's nothing there to damage."

Finally, they broke from the trees to find the shore of a large energy lake. A massive blue dome and large shards of wood broke its shimmering silver surface. Everyone recognised this as the parts of Aeka great webship.

"Well, looks like Kagato is a worse pilot than you, princess," Ryoko commented, snickering in the silence.

"M-my poor Ryu-oh," she drifted out over the lake surface. "Come on Sasami, we must save him!"

Sasami gave Tenchi a helpless look, then zoomed after her sister. "But Aeka, we don't have the hardware to lift it."

Almost immediately, Washuu's device starting beeping audibly and she glanced down at it. Her eyes shot wide. "Aeka! Watch out, it's a--"

"Trap? Hardly." The calm and confident voice seemed to come from nowhere. A sphere of green light formed before the princesses. For a moment a dark shape hovered in the centre of the light. Then the figure advanced, sliding out into view. Revealed was the arrogant visage of Kagato. He stared about at them, first at the princesses, then Washuu and Ryoko and finally he glanced disdainfully at Mihoshi and Tenchi. "Well, Princess Aeka, what interesting company you keep."

"What do you want, Kagato?" Aeka demanded, glaring at him.

Kagato held his hands apart, palms up. "Why, only what I've always wanted, the secret of Tsunami and the power of Jurai." He smiled at them. "And now that Ryoko has collected together Yosho's heir, the first princess, the master key and all three gems, I believe I have them."

Everyone couldn't help but glance at Ryoko, who was growling. Her fangs were bared and her hands were bent into frightening claws. Those demonic eyes were fixed on the sprite floating calmly before them, yet she remained motionless, almost. Slight tremors ran through her body. "Let me go, Kagato," she hissed.

"I think not, puppet." Kagato let go another of his arrogant chuckles.

The sword leapt to life in Tenchi's hands. "Let her go!" He shot forward, to hover between Kagato and the others.

"So, Yosho's heir shows some courage, how unfortunate." He gazed calmly down the length sword. "But I think you still have much to learn about that sword."

"What?" Tenchi made the mistake of glancing down at his weapon. A blur of movement swept him the zip-board, lifting him into air. Kagato started to chuckle and Tenchi found himself trapped in Ryoko's arms.

"Let go of him, monster!" Aeka spat, charging up her forcefield.

Ignoring the princess, Kagato simply stared at Tenchi struggling helplessly. "You are still too inexperienced to even face my puppet, how do you expect to defeat me?"

"Ryoko! What are you doing?!" Tenchi demanded.

"Kagato's using a back door in her code to control her!" Washuu called, shifting so she could watch both Kagato and Ryoko, while staying near the Princesses. "The spammer hacked her code when she was compiling!"

An explosion broke the stalemate as Mihoshi's gun spat forth a bolt of energy. It shot off, slashing Ryoko's arm. The mind-controlled pirate flinched, letting go of Tenchi and flickering over to Kagato's side. Tenchi cried, dropping like a stone, until Washuu intercepted him.

Meanwhile, Mihoshi windmilled on the precarious perch of her zip-board. She teetered for a moment, then fell backwards, landing in the lake with a splash. "Awww, I'm all wet," she complained.

"Thanks, Washuu," Tenchi murmured, folded over the Assembler's shoulder.

"You're welcome. Be my guinea pig in return?" Washuu inquired.

Tenchi's answer, along with further combat, was interrupt by the soft chimes. "Warning: Incoming Game," a soft voice announced from above.

Everyone looked up. The sky had turned a raging purple and a hole had opened directly above them. From the inky darkness of that gaping maw emerged the seething purple base of a long cube.

"Warning: Incoming Game."

"Well young prince, I believe I'll leave you to deal with this new development. Come Ryoko." First Kagato, then Ryoko vanished from sight.

"What is it Lord Tenchi?" Aeka asked, staring up at the descending wall of energy. She could fell the tension in the boy slumped over her shoulder.

"The worst thing that can happen to a sprite," Tenchi answered. "It's a game."

The system vanished in a haze of energy.

*****

On a floating window, Kagato watched as the game cube covered the sprites he had left behind. His old protocols still bothered him, whispering that he should not have left those sprites to face the User alone. Yet again he focussed his will to push down that voice. Long ago he had broken from the collective and rejected their ideals.

"YOU RANDOM CRASHING BASTARD!" Ryoko raged. She hovered nearby in a column of light, mentally free of his control, but unable to move. "What have you done to my TENCHI?!"

"Your Tenchi? My, my, cavorting with the enemy, eh?" He chuckled, amused.

"That's consorting," Ryoko snapped.

"I'm sure." Kagato turned and paced over to her. "Do not worry, if he can't win this game, he certainly wasn't worthy of you."

"GAME?! You left him to a game?! Do you know how dangerous those are?!"

"Believe me, my puppet, I am more familiar with games than you will ever be." He swept back to the window and the quiet demons that plagued him.

*****

Tenchi found himself suspended in liquid. It wasn't energy, but it felt similar, and was just as unbreathable. He reached up and double-clicked his Icon. "Blehbloop!" he managed, and was struck by a column of energy that sizzled through the water. A second yell and burst of energy signaled that one of the others had also rebooted.

He spun, slashing the water with the trident he held in one hand, to find Mihoshi had been encased in a sleek metal vehicle. It was only slightly bigger than her, and had the general shaping of her figure. Two massive nacelles hung to either side, holding violent looking torpedoes. The sub seemed to twist and bend slightly as Mihoshi tried to see her new form.

What was more worrying was that Washuu, Sasami and Aeka were thrashing wildly, trying to breathe in the water. "Tap your Icon twice and yell ReBoot!" Tenchi yelled, urgency emphasising his words, it was only once he finished speaking that he realised he hadn't actually moved his lips. Nevertheless, all three managed to hear him and quickly downloaded their game personas.

Aeka and Sasami had both become mermaids. The elder sister's scales and tail shone with a purple that matched her long hair that now waved in the subtle currents of the sea. Her conservative outfit had been replaced by a swimsuit that hugged her figure, emphasising her attributes. She raised one of her arms, and extended a long rod from behind her wrist.

Her young sister was a smaller version of Aeka, only with sky blue tints. The fins that splayed out from her head caught the light filtering from above, reflecting a myriad of colours. She flicked her tail, do a loop in the water. "Wee, this is fun!" her giggling voice was not the slightest bit muffled or distorted.

Washuu seemed to have gotten the short end of the stick, having rebooted into the least human of the five. She was encased in a massive red shell and had gained four legs. Her arms were now tipped by a massive claws, and ridges rose about her head in a manner reminiscent of her hairstyle.

Even Ryo-ohki had rebooted, now swimming around quite happy as some kind of catfish with very long ears. She was still as cute and furry as ever, yet Tenchi shuddered to think what would happen if she were to transform now.

Finally Tenchi looked down at himself. He was covered in scales like the princesses, however he still had legs. His feet were webbed, as were his hands. He guessed he was some kind of fish man, a guess that the others quickly confirmed. Aeka told him that the gills and seaweed did not in the least detract from his good looks.

'And you have beautiful fins,' Tenchi thought.

Aeka suddenly started acting all coy. "Thank you Lord Tenchi," she murmured. "Although that it isn't very polite to make comments like that in company. Even if it is true."

"Huh?!"

"Aeka, that last comment wasn't very lady-like you know," Sasami giggled, swimming up beside her sister.

Aeka blinked and swiveled about to face her sister. "Reminding Lord Tenchi of his manners is a little forward but hardly a breach of etiquette."

A look of confusion passed over Sasami's face. "Oh, she's really lost it."

"SASAMI! What a thing to say?!" Aeka exclaimed. "Little brat."

A gasp from Washuu grabbed Tenchi attention, he turned to see the crab girl bent in two, claws clutched to her underside. "What's the matter Washuu?" Tenchi swam over to the Assembler.

"We-we're," the start of a few snickers escaped. "We're telepathic!" The laughter escaped, rolling from her. "You three have been transmitting your thoughts to each other." Aeka and Sasami both stared at Washuu for a moment and had the good nature to look ashamed before joining in the laughter.

Mihoshi butted in. "Ah, as funny as this all is, shouldn't we be going after the User?"

Tenchi suddenly fell silent. "She's right, we don't have time for this."

"Woah there, Tenchi," Washuu cried. "You and Mihoshi may know what we're doing, but Sasami, Aeka and I spend little time in systems, so we have absolutely no idea." She paused. "And you have no idea how much that cost to admit," she muttered under her breath.

Tenchi nodded, understanding. "Sorry, I'm not used to people who don't at least know the basics. As I said, games are the worst thing that happened to sprites. If you lose, you're gone, forever, no power known can restore you."

'Hmmm. No power? I bet I could!' Washuu thought in the privacy of her mind. Wisely though she kept it silent, not wanting to start another debate.

Aeka and Sasami gasped, but Tenchi continued. "They say the User input games for fun, but for us it's a dangerous obstacle course in a race against him. Our goal is either to quit file the User, or reach whatever goal he's going for first."

"So what is the goal of this game?" Aeka inquired.

Tenchi shrugged. "I have no idea Miss Aeka. I've never played this game before."

"Now, I'm worried." Washuu commented.

*****

Sleek and terrible, the shark sub thundered through the waters, questing for the treasures of the deep. It's oily black skin held dull reflections of the trench walls that slid past. Two red windows peered out of either side of its head like evil eyes glaring at the world.

A mermaid swum amongst the outcroppings and ledges along the walls, the sparkles of her light blue scales unnoticed by the sub. She paused, staring at her target, then slightly tilted her head. For a moment the sub was bathed in the light of a rainbow, then brilliant burst of light stabbed out from her fins, scarring the side of the sub.

While the sub reacted, pulling up and arcing around, the mermaid shot upwards, flicking her tail as fast as she could. Finally she reached the lip of the trench and threw herself over it, just in time to be missed by a massive torpedo.

"Wee! That was fun!" Sasami cried to the three sprites and one sub that were floating over her. "Let's do it again!"

*****

Aeka was finding it very hard to keep her mind under control. Normally, she only had to enforce her discipline over body language and words, but this telepathy thing meant that even her thoughts weren't private. It didn't help that Tenchi was leading them, and that meant that she was swimming behind him, unable to take her eyes off those powerful legs propelling him through the water.

"Aeka, you're slipping again," Sasami whispered from beside her.

She couldn't help but blush a pretty shade of purple in reply. "Thank you Sasami." Aeka turned to look at her sister. The little girl had taken to her new form like, well, a fish to water. Like the rest she was swimming with her arms by her side, relying on the powerful swaying motion of her tail to thrust her on.

"Watch out up ahead," Tenchi called back. "Looks like there are some geysers."

Aeka turned back to look past him. Beyond was a valley full of craters. She could see small objects being spat out of the craters upwards towards the surface.

"Ya know Tenchi, if we found some really big boulders and rolled them into those craters this place could become a real death trap," Washuu mused from atop Mihoshi's sub. They'd quickly discovered that her crab form was the slowest, so she, unfortunately, been forced hitch a ride with Mihoshi.

"Sounds good." Tenchi nodded and scanned the area. "Aeka, use your spike to slice through some of those outcroppings, we can use them."

Aeka nodded. "Right Lord Tenchi." She flicked her tail, spinning herself and thrust outwards towards the outcroppings.

"Aeka, look out!" Tenchi's cry, coupled with the sudden roar from beneath her told her of her mistake. She had only a moment to curse her inattention before the powerful current sucked her in.

"Lllooorrrrdddd Teeeeennnnnccccchhhhhiiiiii!!!!!"

Tenchi dove forward, grabbing at her arm. "AEKA!" His hand slid past him, then he too was pulled from sight.

"Umm... What do we do now?" Mihoshi asked, glancing around inside her mini-sub.

Washuu looked about them at the geysers. "Well, one thing we don't do is cover those. We might be blocking their escape."

*****

"Lllooorrrrdddd Teeeeennnnnccccchhhhhiiiiii!!!!!" To Aeka wailing was the height of bad manners, but even her mother would have to admit that manners were not a consideration when being pulled down a long twisting tunnel at bitmap fragging speeds.

Like a bit in a datastorm, Aeka was tossed helpless about as bends and offshoots flashed past faster than her eyes could see. Finally the wild ride ended with her being spit out into a cavern. She floated for a second, dazed by the ride, before realising she wasn't alone.

Eyes the size of saucers peered at out her from the darkness of a recess. They watched her as she floated nervously returning the gaze. Slowly they moved forward, revealing a monstrous head and a fanged mouth that Aeka was sure could effortlessly snap her in two.

"--kkkkkaaaaa!!!!!" Tenchi popped out the tunnel and slammed into Aeka. The pair felt the currents caused by the massive creature biting through the water in which Aeka had moments ago swum. Next they felt the cold hard surface of the cavern wall.

The massive eel circled about, its body still coming free of the burrow. Both Triton and Mermaid watched as it bared its many rows of teeth and tensed for another lunge.

A lunge it never made. The three points of a trident struck the eel's snout, causing it to recoil away. Tenchi, Aeka and the eel all looked up to find a second Triton, almost the mirror image of Tenchi, hovering in the water not far away. He pulled back his arm and another trident appeared in his hands.

"I don't think so."


	9. v 2,3,3

Wild Boot: The Net Games

By David Farr

Tenchi Muyo is copyright of AIC : Pioneer LDC, INC. ReBoot is the property of Mainframe. Ranma 1/2 is copyrighted by Rumiko Takahashi/Shogakukan,Inc. All are used here respectfully for the purposes of fanfiction. This story may be redistributed only if unchanged and no fee is charged.

*****

Ranma: I live in the games

I search through systems, peoples and cities,

Meeting new friends and enemies,

Defending their hopes,

And Dreams

My Code:

To Mend and Defend.

*****

v 2.3.3: Of Games and Guardians

*****

Flashes of lightning illuminated the angry clouds of pulsating purple energy that arched between the clusters. Tendrils reached out and spun into deep swirls, continuing in an endless dance of mystery and beauty that had continued on without rhyme nor reason for as long as there had been systems. Many gigacycles had passed in unobserved emptiness, but then the AIs had come, and in time they had been followed.

This was the third sea; a place where sprites did not belong. The Net was safe and well travelled, the Web less so, with its fierce datastorms and degrading packet loss, but this place did not allow for any of the laws of those places. This was Game Space, floating somewhere in the metacodic void above the systems but below the User.

When they had first ridden the current of that ocean they'd been in no condition to truly experience the sensations. They had thought themselves nullified, and in truth the only thing that saved them was the hack that had enabled two of them to safely play games. Its buffering, combined with the game sprite's code, had served to carry them onwards.

The next time they had ridden the games they suffered the full experience. There was no pain as their bitmap and code was converted into a floating mass of sentient energy. At first they had simply let the currents carry them to the next game and into the next system, but in time they had learnt how to propel themselves through the seas. Not that had helped. They still had no way of navigating.

'That way,' it wasn't speech, more of a direct communication. Information usually conveyed by a nod or a pointed finger was included in the message. All four streamed off, riding a burst of energy across to the forming game.

At first it appeared as a wire frame amidst the clouds, which they slipped through, as a brown layer settled over it, constructing an unnatural monochromatic landscape. The four hovered over the landscape, waiting. Colours started appearing, pinks, greens and browns across the hills that faded to black in the crevices. Then the sky above them was painted in a deep aqua.

Next, the wireframe forms of plants and background features formed, and then they too were covered in bright colours, leaving them standing eerily still. Moments past before the Game Sprites started forming, including the bodies of the four. With that their codes halted, so they never witnessed the painting of shadows and final touches of the game compiling.

"Warning: Incoming Game!" *****

They had split up, Ranma deciding to take his chances in a secret route through the tunnels to the game's goal while the others kept the User busy. It was a risky plan, Ranma would be alone with no one to back him up, but they'd decided to run it that way.

The tunnel he swam down ended suddenly, opening into a massive cavern. A soft blue glow was emitted from the moss and lichen covering the walls, illuminating the massive hall, letting him see the numerous holes and tunnels leading out.

'I don't like this,' he thought, hovering in the shadows about the entrance. 'Too open.'

"--ccccchhhhhhhiiiiiiiii!" One of the tunnels suddenly spat out a figure. The blue glow reflected in her silver scales as she tumbled across the cavern. A flick for her tail and a twist of her fins stabilised her.

Slight movement from one of the distant openings caught Ranma's eye, and he shifted to see the beak of a giant eel sliding free of the darkness. Fortunately the girl seemed to sense the creature, but froze as she gazed into those massive eyes.

Ranma gripped his trident, but before he could react, a second figure was spat from the tunnel. "--kkkkkaaaaa!!!!!" The triton slammed into the mermaid, sweeping her out of the eel's reach.

As the monstrous aquatic menace circled around for another attack, Ranma kicked out, propelling himself forward. He drew back his arm, holding his trident ready. Judging his moment, he thrust the weapon forward as the eel reared up.

He pulled out and stopped, watching as the trident struck the tip of the eel's beak. "I don't think so," Ranma announced as the two sprites turned to look at him.

The girl was the first to react. Her fins twitched, turning herself back to the eel. Hands cupped she concentrated for a moment, then fired off a massive burst of electricity that sent the eel reeling. Some quiet part of Ranma's mind noted that her blast seemed very skilled for someone who moments ago was frozen in fear.

"Let's get out of here!" Ranma snapped, then flipped himself over and started swimming.

Only moments later the shadows of the tunnels reclaimed him. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, the silver scaled mermaid came up along side him, the other triton slightly behind. The girl was breathing hard, and it occurred to Ranma that neither had his training. He slowed down, then stopped, twisting about to face the pair. Surprisingly, the other triton seemed not to be showing any signs of exhaustion.

"Thanks for the rescue." The young man smiling slightly.

The girl nodded, the movement sending her bobbing slightly. "Yes, thank you. It was most timely."

Ranma grinned at them. "That's my code." There was a crash, followed by a wave of pressure that pushed then a little further down the tunnel. "Stupid game sprite. It didn't even realise this tunnel was too small." Turning back to face the pair he put on his friendliest smile. "I'm Guardian Ranma Saotome."

"Tenchi Masaki," the triton offered, "and this is Princess Aeka."

Ranma nodded his head respectfully. "Your Highness. May I inquire as to what format you are the heiress to?"

"I will one day be of the , but you may call Aeka."

"? Never heard of it," Ranma shrugged. "I'd love to stay online and chat, but I was making for the treasure before I encountered you. My friends are trying to keep the User busy, so I've got to hurry." He glanced at the darkened tunnel. "We'd better stick together, there's nowhere safe down here."

*****

"The User's headed this way," Mihoshi commented, her mini-sub's aqua thrusters pushing her back beneath line of the ridge. "Just another minute and it will be exactly where you want it."

Washuu nodded, her head hair swinging in the sea. The time unit was new to her, yet she understood. Again she wished for Tenchi. The boy was the closest thing they had to an expert on games and maybe he could explain all inconsistencies she'd noticed.

"Good, when the User gets here, we pull on this seaweed." Washuu indicated a vine hanging next to her. "That'll yank the driftwood out from under the boulder, allowing it to roll down the hill. At the bottom, the boulder will smash into the nest of those eels, causing them to swarm out and attracting the wolf fish. The User will be unable to stop before hitting the feeding frenzy and will be consumed. Got it?"

Inside her mini-sub Mihoshi thought for a moment. "Ah... no," she hazarded. Washuu face faulted and Sasami groaned.

"Right. Sasami, go take a look would you?"

The young mermaid princess nodded and flicked her tail, sending herself floating up to the ridgeline. As she peered over the edge, Ryo-ohki swam happily about her, mewing.

"Okay Washuu. He's almost in position." Sasami's report prompted Washuu to wrap a claw around the seaweed. "Uh-oh."

"Uh-oh. What's Uh-oh?"

Sasami pulled herself up a little further, peering into the murky water below. "There's someone in some kind of black suit out there. I think he's about to..." She winced as there was a flash of light and Sasami ducked as a wave of force roared over the ridge. "... attack the User."

"WHAT?!" Washuu scrambled up the rocks to stare down into the valley beyond. The massive form of the User dwarfed the black figure and its weapon. Yet blast after blast cut through the water. Slowly the User came about, bringing its weapons to bear on its attacker.

"What is she doing?" Washuu demanded, glaring across the ravine. "That'll never do enough damage!"

Suddenly the attacking sprite shot upwards, dodging the lethal energy spat out by the User. Engines roared to life, carrying the massive shark sub up after the fleeing sprite. As the pair crested the distant ridgeline, long tentacles extended outwards, entangling the sub.

Washuu leapt down onto Mihoshi's back. "It's an ambush. Let's go help!"

Shampoo really hated her game form. The thick tentacles that had replaced her legs were useful, letting her reach out and ensnare almost anything, even the User, but the sickly green colour scheme of her skimpy outfit (which Ranma wasn't about to appreciate) clashed with her hair. "Stupid game sprite, throw stones!" she snapped.

Growling, RyoGA bent down and shoved his rocky hands into the ground. While the slab appeared to be torn out of the stone, RyoGA knew from experience that they'd be no hole, such was the reality of games. Heaving with mighty muscles of stones, he threw the slab at the captured shark sub. It arched through the water and smashed into the port diving plane next to the rotor, crumpling it.

"Stupid! You supposed to hit engine!"

A lance of light striking through the water cut off RyoGA's reply. Moments later a torpedo joined it, slamming into the side of the sub. A wall of water rushed past them as the User's hull imploded under the assault.

Mihoshi and Sasami cheered as the User's Shark Sub slid from the tentacles and glided down to the ground. Standing atop Mihoshi's hull, Washuu noticed that the ambushers were not looking so elated. She watched as the User plowed into the seabed, sending up a cloud of silt, and wondered what was wrong.

Moments later, she had her answer as the ruined sub flickered out of existence, and a fully functional sub appeared over it. The shouts of joy died in Mihoshi and Sasami's mouths as the mammoth submarine powered away.

With a single thrust of her tentacles, Shampoo thrust herself upwards. "What you think you doing?!" She loomed up over Washuu and the others, causing them to jump backwards in fright. It took a moment for the assembler to realise that Mihoshi had tilted backwards, forcing her to scramble for purchase on the mini-sub's hull.

"Calm down, Shampoo sugah." Ukyo the frogman swam up, her watersled pulling her into the conversation. "I doubt they knew wha' they were doing."

"But was such a good plan," Shampoo pouted.

"Excuse me," Washuu interrupted, still dangling from Mihoshi's periscope, "could you explain what just happened."

"Sure, sugah," Ukyo grinned, treading water. "In this game the User has thirteen lives. Every time we take 'im down, he just pops up as good as new. We got a friend whose off trying to win the game while we've gotta slow down the User."

*****

Outside the game, Ryoko still found herself caught within Kagato's holding field. The sprite who had abandoned her Tenchi stood not far away, staring at the game cube in the window. He'd barely twitched in the time since the cube had fallen, just staring passively at the display as the seconds ticked by.

Okay, so it hadn't actually been seconds, the game had arrived only nanos ago, but with her beloved on the line it seemed so much longer. Ryoko had watched many games from her file folder deep in the storage vaults, and had seen the devastation. She had fallen for young Tenchi, who had often come down to the vaults to play, and when his grandfather, the same sprite that locked her in there, started taking Tenchi into games, her energy spiked.

Now Tenchi was trapped in a game along with the mismatched group they had rescued from Ryu-oh. Games were hard enough without having to putting up with a pouting princess and the insane ranting of an assembler that insisted Ryoko was her daughter.

"You worry too much, Ryoko," Kagato commented, not taking his eyes off the window. "Yosho's heir should be more than capable of winning a game, but this does give me the time to clear the field of any annoyances." He turned, a quiet, but smug, grin on his face.

*****

Katsuhito, Tenchi's grandfather and the self-exiled prince Yosho of Jurai, stood at the entrance of the vaults. A steady stream of binomes hurried past him into safety. The viral infection was spreading fast; already most of the system had been abandoned to the spreading green veins as they covered buildings and vehicles.

"My baby!"

The scream caused Katsuhito to look up. At the end of the passing column he could see two things. First the approaching wave of green lines that swept across the landscape towards them. The second was the bawling baby binome lying on the ground not far from the infection.

There was no thought, just reaction. The landscape and people about him blurred as he shot forward past the last of the refugees. His arms extended as he skidded across the landscape and he scooped the child off the ground.

Suddenly, the ground beneath his feet slid away towards the ever-approaching infection, sending the tall sprite sprawling. Glancing back, Katsuhito saw the glowing green veins gather up around his outstretched leg.

Giving a loud cry, Katsuhito thrust forward, leaping into a fast run. Ahead of him, he could see binomes gathered just within the massive gates. On either side of him he could feel the viral infection keeping pace with his own quick steps.

"CLOSE THE DOORS!" he screamed. The binomes blinked in confusion. "CLOSE THE CRASHING DOORS!" One of the CPU binomes leapt up and slapped the door control, starting the large doors grinding down towards the ground.

Katsuhito continued his run, the green lines of the infection of the surging over post boxes and consuming lampposts. Taking a deep breath, the old sprite drew on his last strength to thrust himself forward, diving with the baby held before him. He flew forward, struck the ground and skidded forward, coming to a halt as the door clanged shut.

The crowd about him burst into applause as the mother gratefully took back her child. Grinning inanely, Katsuhito stood and took in the congratulations of the binomes about him. He nodded and gazed through the crowd, glad to let his rescue boost their morale.

A loud metal creaking silenced the cheers. Everyone turned to gaze at the massive metal doors, fearfully looking for evidence of them breaking.

"It's only a matter of time," Katsuhito murmured darkly, the light gleaming off his glasses, hiding his eyes. "Only the User can save us now."

*****

"Excuse me, Guardian Ranma."

The Guardian slowed a little, falling back a little as they swam through the dark tunnels. "Yeah?"

Aeka glared at him for a moment angered by his familiarity, but the look was lost in the darkness. "If the User is a large submarine, why do these tunnels exist? Is it not impossible for him to enter them?"

"Nice to see you thinking," Ranma commented, not looking back and ignoring her undertones. "The answer is that the user has a second smaller sprite that can leave the sub and swim down here. There's lots of power-ups and extra-life coins hidden in these tunnels, plus this shortcut that we're following of course."

"I see, but--" She was silenced by Tenchi's sudden stop.

"What is it Tenchi?" Ranma swam up next to the other Triton.

"That light up ahead, I don't trust it."

Ranma looked up, and could see the shadow's on the tunnel's walls starting to lighten as they sloped around. "You're right. Might be a lantern fish or something. We should go slow."

"Right." Tenchi nodded.

Slowly, the trio advanced, stretching their senses outwards. As the tunnel turned it started to widen, at last coming out into a brilliantly lit cavern. Peering out there could see the cavern continue upwards to the very surface of the water.

"That's our way out," Ranma whispered. "But there's a problem."

"Isn't there always," Tenchi returned, gaining a grin from Ranma.

"Let me show you." The Guardian-Triton pulled back his trident and hurled it into the cavern. After a few moments a swarm of small fish shot out walls to attack the weapon. In only a matter of moments the feeding frenzy was over, and the piranha vanished once more, leaving only empty water behind.

Aeka gasped, raising her hands to her mouth. "How are we supposed to move through that?"

"Slowly and without making a sound," Ranma replied.

*****

The explosion's shock wave sent rock, plants and shards of metal flying through the water. Ukyo turned to look at the red-haired sprite treading water next to her, her gaze questioning.

Washuu grinned sheepishly. "Okay, a bit too much."

"A bit?!" Ukyo exclaimed incredulously. "Are you insane?! That's the best deletion I've ever seen! There's nothing left!"

Above them the user flashed back into existence, and continued on his unrelenting course onwards.

*****

Ranma kicked slowly, barely able to feel the water flowing past him. His immediate goal, a steady column of bubbles that signified an upward current, wasn't too far, yet it seemed further than he'd travel so far.

"There's an advantage to telepathy," he thought at the other pair. "Makes having a private discussion easy."

"We won't disturb the piranhas?" Aeka inquired.

"Obviously not," Tenchi returned. "Nothing had happened yet."

"So tell me, Lord Ranma," Aeka thought, "what is a guardian?"

"Hmmm, long story." He focused on their journey for a moment. "But I think we have the time." He grinned, although the other two couldn't see it. "We were taught that once, long ago, the systems were separated by a wild cyber-sea. Travel between cities was rare, and so the goods they carried were valuable. Software pirates of course started operating the trade routes, attacking ships, disrupting trade and even attack systems."

"Reminds me of Ryoko," Aeka sniffed mentally, although she managed to not make the accompanying movements.

"Who?" Ranma inquired.

"She's a software pirate I freed recently," Tenchi replied. "Although she's not that bad."

"Huh?" Ranma hesitated. "Never mind. You can tell me later. Anyway, with pirates preying on the ships, someone needed to do more than merely react, so a group started hunting down the pirate ships and bringing order to the cyber-seas. They did a pretty good job, forming the loose collection of systems into an ever-growing network. In time the seas were calmed and formed into the Net and the group became known as the Guardian Collective, because that was what they were.

"But as the systems grew and prospered new menaces came, the games, instabilities in the interface, and viruses. Each problem was overcome, in time, and the Protocols of the Guardians expanded to aid in protecting them." Ranma fell silent, his story finished. His small amount of momentum carried him into the bubbles and the current grabbed him, starting him floating upwards.

"In truth my own network of Jurai had a similar beginning," Aeka admitted as she relaxed into the currents. "Except we had the aid of our ancestors, the Space Trees. Their power made it possible to deal with the web creatures and the terrible degradation of the web."

"The web?!" Ranma exclaimed in the vaults of their minds. "Now I'm impressed. What about you, Tenchi? What's your story?"

"Well, I don't have either of your backgrounds..."

"But you do, Lord Tenchi," Aeka interrupted. "Kagato himself declared you the heir of my brother Yosho, as such you can call on the power of Jurai. This makes you an extraordinary sprite."

"Ah, yes." Tenchi was glad that the other two weren't able to see him, he was sure his blush was showing through his scales. "Still, until recently I thought I was just an ordinary sprite. My grandfather was training me to be the protector of the storage archives. He taught me gaming and fighting in case the archive was caught in a game."

"He did a good job," Ranma commented. "You're better than most of defenders I've met, and believe me, I've known some pretty dedicated defenders."

*****

Sasami concentrated for a second on the large rock outcropping. It was an interesting sensation, shifting the frills on her face to catch the light and focus it on one spot. Briefly, she wondered if this was what her sister Aeka felt when she was running the Juraian subroutines.

The lance of light sliced through the rock, separating it from the cliff-side. It was easily ten times larger than Sasami, and she wondered just how the sprite below was planning to move with it, let alone catch it.

As it was, the massive rock only fell a few pixels before coming to rest on the rocky shoulders of RyoGA. The game sprite grunted, and started forward to the edge of the precipice beyond. He paused, gazed for a moment at the approaching wake, then hurled the massive rock.

Gracelessly, it arced through the air, and dropped towards the black shark sub-marine. At the last moment the User skidded to a stop, but the projectile clipped its nose, sending it spinning into the darkness. For a moment there was silence, then a pair of loud crashes, and finally an explosion illuminated the crevice.

Two green tentacles snaked down and wrapped around the rocky sprite. "Stupid game sprite miss again," Shampoo accused. A single thrust of the rest of her tentacles lifted RyoGA off the seabed.

Ukyo sped past. "That's three down!" she cried. Moments later Mihoshi shot after her, Washuu clinging for dear life to her periscope.

*****

"Only another few minutes," Ranma commented, continuing to gaze up. The mouth of the cave was slowly opening up above them, revealing more of the sparkling blue waters. "So this Ryoko's now under the control of this Kagato guy?" He paused a few seconds. "Why does that name sound familiar?"

"Yes," replied Aeka, "according to Miss Washuu he added a backdoor into her code while she was compiling. He apparently boasted a lot to Washuu while she had him imprisoned, including telling her what had become to her daughter."

"Talkative was he?" Ranma inquired.

"He did not seem to be the few times I found myself in his presence. He just watched me with a calm face and that horrible smile in his eyes."

Tenchi frowned in thought. "I don't like the sound of that. Am I the only one who smells a null there?"

"Silver hair and a blue bitmap?" Ranma asked, still in thought.

"Yes... do you know him?"

"I can't be sure," Ranma replied. "I seriously doubt it. The guy I'm thinking of was deleted a few gigacycles ago."

*****

Shampoo floated up over the rise, her metal eye highlighted red. Slowly she lowered Gun and sighted it on the approaching bulk charging towards her. Thanks to the advanced targeting function built into both, a crosshairs appeared in her vision, letting her fix on the User's sub.

"Gun, command line: bind." The weapon beeped in acknowledgement, then Shampoo pulled the trigger.

Gun's barrel spat out a ball of blue energy that sizzled as it slide through the water. Neither blast not sub altered their course, until only moments separated them. Suddenly, the ball split apart, spreading into a web of energy strands larger the sub. Apparently unaware of the net, the User plowed into it, and passed harmlessly through.

"SPAM!" Shampoo cursed, diving back into cover. The group hidden there felt the rumble as the massive form passed overhead.

"What happened?" Sasami asked, floating beside the half-octopus-sprite.

"Game has cheat protections. Gun not part of game, so is not able to affect game." Shampoo frowned. "There trouble, this last level. We waste too much time and we lose game."

Ukyo nodded. "That means we have to stop playing safe."

"And your plan is?" Washuu inquired.

"Full out attack, but only low power blasts. We annoy him and get him to chase us."

"B-but, that's dangerous," Mihoshi whined, bursting into tears inside her sub.

"Betta than sittin' back and loosin' the game, sugah."

"We'd survive," RyoGA rumbled, "and ride the game out, but you three would certainly be nullified."

*****

The city of Atlantis was in sight, the User had almost finished this game. It almost seemed too easy. Okay, so he'd lost almost half his lives, but getting through the game first time was unusual. It would only be a few more minutes and he'd have the treasure.

*BOOOM*

The torpedo slammed into the User's aft, shredding his armour. Slowly he came about to see a horde of sprites swimming towards him. Another series of blasts followed the torpedo, all slightly off target.

His torpedo ports slid open. He had time, and lots of lives. This was going to be fun.

*****

Ranma burst from the mouth of the cave, glad to be moving again. The blue-scaled mermaid princess paused for a few seconds, staring after him, before flicking her tail and sliding off after him. Passing the safe point last, Tenchi was forced to swim hard to catch up.

"What's the hurry?" he gasped, pulling up beside the guardian.

"Check out four o'clock."

Tenchi glanced over his right shoulder to see a series of flashes in the murky distance. "What's that?"

"My three friends, another mermaid, a mini-sub and a crab-warrior attacking the User," Ranma replied. "They're trying to keep it busy."

"A mermaid?!" Aeka exclaimed, trying to peer over her shoulder and swim at the same time. "Sasami is in a battle?!" A bright line of light served as an answer, followed by a distance explosion.

"MYA! MYA! MYA!" The horizon was lit up by a flash of light.

"Funny, I didn't think this game had UFOs."

*****

"Memo to self," Ukyo muttered, watching as what little was left of the User floated down to the seabed, "don't ever threaten the little girl when the cute cat thing is nearby."

Sasami giggled as Ryo-ohki weakly meowed in her arms. "Thank you, Ryo-ohki."

The few armour plates left after the blast disappeared and the User reappeared. Immediately everyone started attacking. Rocks, torpedos and blasts of light cutting through the water. Despite the attack the User continued on, ignoring the sprites and making for the treasure.

"Crash it!" Shampoo spat. "We need buy more time!"

"Is there any point?" RyoGA rumbled, pulling another massive slab free.

"Ranma is there!" Shampoo returned. "We just need buy him more time!"

Washuu looked thoughtful, then clicked her claw thoughtfully. "I note that there is a period of nanoseconds that the User is inactive whenever he is deleted."

Ukyo nodded in acknowledgement. "Right, everyone, CHARGE!"

*****

"SWIM!" Ranma urged. "SWIM LIKE YOUR PROCESS DEPENDS ON IT!"

Both Tenchi and Aeka were startled by his sudden exclamation, so were left behind as he surged forward. Glancing back, they could now see the fuzzy shape of the User looming out of the murk. Less frequently explosions could be seen, but it was obvious that the sub was gaining on them.

Turning ahead that they could see the glistening spires of Atlantis. Their fins and tail bet hard, thrusting them through the water towards the distant buildings. A glowing pile of gold and gems slid into view, Ranma's distant form almost vanishing in glare.

The thrumming of the black shark submarine engines grew louder, giving the pair no reason bother to check behind them again. Neither wished to know exactly how little chance they had.

Suddenly a discharge sounded behind them and a large wall slammed into them. The substance wrapped around them, sweeping them forward and collecting Ranma as it continued onwards. Forcefully they crashed into the ground, just short of the goal.

"Can anyone get free?!" Ranma called, struggling in the quickly hardening goo that surrounded them.

"I am sorry, but I am completely trapped," Aeka gasped, glad that her head was clear, but noting that it was getting hard to breath.

Tenchi didn't answer. Instead, he was stretching out with his arm. He couldn't see, but he could feel something just beyond his, if he could just grab it he was sure he could get free.

"Tenchi?" Ranma called.

His fingers clawed at the ground, trying to find purchase. Just a little more, just a little more.

"Tenchi?!" Aeka screamed.

Suddenly the goo about him gave and he moved forward the inch he needed. Quickly he grabbed the object and pulled with all his might. His hopes fell as the object gave and he fell back.

"Game over." The soft voice announced.

Tenchi brought the object he had grabbed before him, feeling dejected. For a few seconds he stared at his reflection in the golden disc.

A haze of purple sailed up over him and the disc vanished. He just lay there, on top of the dome of Ryu-oh's remains, staring at his empty hand. Even the thumps of the others crashing onto the hull behind him didn't earn a twitch.

"Lord Tenchi!" Aeka cried, leaping to her feet and running over to stand over him. "You saved us!"

Tenchi blinked and. "I did, didn't I?"

"Yeah, good work," Ranma muttered distractedly. "What in the web is this?"

Everyone gathered together at the top of the dome and stared out. The system was dark, and in the dusk-like light every one could see a nightmarish landscape constructed of jagged spires and twisted shapes, all highlighted with glowing green veins.

"He's infected the entire system," Washuu exclaimed.

Ranma's face tightened and he spoke with a quiet strength. "This is bad!"

"Very bad!" Tenchi agreed, equally serious.


	10. v 2,4,1

Wild Boot: The Net Games

By David Farr

Tenchi Muyo is copyright of AIC : Pioneer LDC, INC. ReBoot is the property of Mainframe. Ranma 1/2 is copyrighted by Rumiko Takahashi/Shogakukan,Inc. All are used here respectfully for the purposes of fanfiction. This story may be redistributed only if unchanged and no fee is charged.

*****

Gosunkugi: We come from the Net,

Sasuke: No we don't! We came from a shop!

Gosunkugi: But coming from the Net sounds better!

Sasuke: Look, just say it the way we discussed.

Gosunkugi: We come from a shop. Our code: To blindly follow and obey.

Sasuke: That's right! You command, we obey!

Gosunkugi: No. Kuno commands, we obey.

Sasuke: That what I meant!

*****

v 2.4.1: A Tangled Skein

*****

Deep beneath the streets of Mainframe, in the very superstructure of the system, rivers of sickly glowing energy wound their way through darkened tunnels. Usually, the tunnels were thought too dangerous, thanks to the mutant nulls roaming them and the sudden surges of liquid energy waste, threatening to carry away sprite and binome alike. However, an intrepid band of sprites were using them in an attempt to sneak up on their prey.

It was perhaps unfortunate that the band of virals were being lead by the two bots Gosunkugi and Sasuke. Certainly that would explain why they were closer to Al's diner than to the Principal Office. The plan had been said to be fool proof, the two black bots had proven that wrong.

A loud clang rang out as something metallic fell onto the concrete beside the river, only to bounce and disappear into the green goo. Sasuke, in the lead of the column, turned, raising a finger to his dome, and shushed his partner before turning back. Gosunkugi turned and shushed the viral binome immediately behind him. That viral turned and shushed the next spy in line, who copied the maneuver and shushed Fuchikoma. Quickly the large red mecha spun and shushed Akane, who slapped her forehead.

"Eep!" squeaked the last spy in line, right before Akane vaulted over Fuchikoma and knocked him to the ground.

"Would you keep quiet!" Sasuke exclaimed, spinning around. His eyes popped open in surprise when he noticed that instead of a dozen virals, he was being followed by a single trench-coated spy, a pissed off looking defender and a large mecha.

"Fuchikoma, take care of the bots while I take care of our friends." Akane waved at the two virals.

"Yes ma'am!" Fuchikoma cried and leapt forward to tackle to the two bots.

Ignoring the melee, Akane quickly took down the last spy. Grinning, she pulled out a file locker. Once both virals were encased, she tapped the air, summoning up a vid window. "Kasumi, all clear down here. I've got all the virals. You can take them in to be reformated."

"What of Gosunkugi and Sasuke?" the inquired.

Sasuke's domed head bounced a couple of times before coming to rest at Akane's feet. "Oh, they're out of the PIC." She kicked the dome, sending it skittering into the energy flow.

"Hey, she kicked me!" Sasuke complained as his head floated out of view. Moments later, Gosunkugi and the rest of his parts joined it.

"Good job, Fuchikoma," Akane said, turning to smile at her mecha.

"Shank you, ma'am," he slurred, then collapsed to the ground.

Akane groaned. "Back to the repair bay for you."

*****

"How could you fail?!"

Gosunkugi and Sasuke glanced at each other, then looked at their boss. He stood before his floating throne, swinging his energy sword wildly. His dark blue visage was twisted in anger as he loomed over the pair.

"That plan was fool proof!" Kuno exclaimed.

Behind him, sitting provocatively on the arm of the throne, Nabiki was examining a display window. She still wore the bitmap-hugging glossy black armour that she had emerged from the cocoon in. Absently, she tapped one of her black, claw-like nails on her black lips.

"Obviously not proof against these fools," Nabiki mused, slipping off the thrones arm. She started to saunter over to the pair of bots, grinning as she stalked them. "According to the map they ended up wandering through every part of Mainframe but the Principal Office. I don't know why you put up with them.

"I could understand their defeats by Ranma, he was always very tricky and had so many friends, but now..." she reached out and tapped her nails against Gosunkugi's chest, causing him to roll backwards, "...they're losing to my guileless sister. If anything, they're hindering our - sorry - your rise to power. Get rid of them."

"Stupid they may be," Kuno rumbled, "but they are useful in both their loyalty and their power. Still." He paused and glared at the pair of bots. "Should they fail me once more, it shall be to their regret."

*****

The doors to the core control chamber hissed open, letting Akane in. A few of the technicians glanced up at her, but quickly got back to work. Kasumi worked behind the main control panel, her fingers dancing across the keys at a frenzied pace.

Wearily, Akane trudged up the ramp to stand next to her sister. "Anti-virus chamber up and running," she reported.

Kasumi replied with a sound and a slight nod.

"What are you doing?" Akane peered over her sister's shoulder. On the desk next to the console's display was a small file folder displaying an open document. Curious, Mainframe's Guardian cadet peered at the document's filename. "Indexer[Nabiki].Uninstall()?" she cried. "Kasumi, why do you have an uninstall file for Nabiki?"

Kasumi paused, and turned to her sister, placing her hands on her hips. "For just this eventuality," she replied. "I also have detailed plans on the removal of all access for you, father, Ranma, and Ranma's friends. I had to be sure that if any of you turned against the system, for any reason, I could minimise that damage." That said, she turned back to the console and got to work again.

"But..." Akane stuttered, "how could you...?"

"Mistrust you all? I didn't, but I had to be ready, just in case. Please Akane, it's hard enough to do this to my own sister without you questioning my actions."

"Ah... okay." Akane shuffled backwards. "I think I'll just go offline for a little while."

"Do that. You need your rest."

Akane stood for a moment, watching her sister work, before turning to head for the door. She paused once, leaning against the doorway, and stared at the girl tapping busily at her console. Her hesitation passed, and the doors slid closed behind her.

*****

The doors slid open, sending a rectangle of light across the room. A single figure stepped in to be framed in the doorway, then reached out to into the darkness beside her. Light swept through the room, revealing the desk sitting in the corner and the bed against the wall.

"What a day," Akane grumbled, stumbled across the room. Her foot struck a dumbbell, sending her belly flopping onto the bed with a grunt.

"Oh, great." She rolled over and stared at the roof. "What else can happen?" She reached up and tapped her Icon. A fuzz of energy ran over her body, exchanging her blue cadet's uniform for a pair of pink pyjamas.

A vid window popped open, showing a telephone with the receiver ringing off the hook. "Ring ring ring, ring ring ring, phone call, phone call."

Akane pulled herself up out off the bed and stared at the window for a nano. "Accept call," she murmured. The window flashed and a sprite dressed in black armour appeared, glancing over her shoulder.

"Nabiki?!" Akane exclaimed.

Nabiki whipped her head around, surprise showing on her face momentarily before relief replaced it. "Akane, about time. Do you know how long I've been trying to get through?" She shook her head. "Never mind, I don't have long."

"What's happening?" Akane demanded. "I mean, why are you calling me?"

Static passed over the screen for a moment, and Nabiki's image wavered before becoming clear again. "Look, I've had to hack through both Kuno's and Kasumi's security, and neither of them are making this easy, so I have no time for stupid questions. As you can guess that stupid machine of Kuno's didn't work."

"But why haven't you done something before now?" Akane blurted.

"I haven't had a chance," Nabiki replied. "I've had to play the evil schemer for Kuno to get this moment. Look, I need your help. There is no way Kuno is going to let me escape, so we're going to have to assemble something up."

Akane leant forward. "Okay, what do you want?"

*****

As the sound of Nabiki's stiletto heels striking the metal floor approached, Kuno minimised the window he was looking at. The corrupted sprite's hips swung seductively as she walked foot before foot. She wore a sly grin. "It's all set up, Kuno-baby."

"Excellent, take the men you need," the virus waved at her. "And do not fail me."

"Of course not, Kuno-baby." She spun on her heels, then turned back, a cunning gleam in her red eyes. "Do you mind if I take along the two henchbots?"

"Go ahead. I'm sure you'll put them to good use." He drew out the last word.

"Oh, I'm sure I will."

Kuno watched her saunter off, not taking his eyes off her until the doors hissed closed behind her. He reached out and tapped the icon floating before him. The window popped open, displaying Akane, dressed in her pink pyjamas and reaching out to close the window.

*****

"Wow, look what I found!" Sasuke rose out of the piles of junk, waving a pink sphere.

Sitting atop an old broken food assembler, Nabiki turned her head slowly and laid her eyes on the bot. Her eyes tightened, and she slipped off her perch, starting across the junkyard towards him. "Wow, Sasuke, that's a truly impressive find," she drawled, resting a hand on his shoulder. "It's almost as good as the Peek command Gosunkugi found." She sighed. "Why did Kuno send me on such a useless task?"

"It fits your new station," a voice sneered from above, "traitor."

All eyes turned up, to find Akane standing atop the catwalk next to the conveyor belt lead to the object destruction furnace. She casually held a rocket launcher in one hand. "A viral's function in this system is as a target."

"Capture her, and Kuno will reward us!" Nabiki screamed, stabbing her finger at Guardian cadet.

"Right!" the bots chorused, and launched themselves into the air.

Akane gave a confident bark of laughter and dropped to one knee, shouldering the rocket launcher. "Sorry, not going to be that easy." She thumbed the trigger, sending a missile spiraling towards the pair.

The eyes of both bots bugged out and the moronic pair separated, the missile sliding between them. Gosunkugi grinned at his partner, then turned to look at the Guardian. "HA! You mis--" He was silenced as explosions consumed both he and Sasuke.

Nabiki stood calmly as bot bits rained down about her. She glanced at the detonator switch in her hand, the same remote for the two mini-bombs she had slipped onto the two henchbots. Shrugging, she tossed away it

"Sorry boys, looks like you lose." Nabiki smirked down at them.

Shouting, Akane leapt, plummeting down from the catwalk. She landed with a crunch on one knee, then stood and took a single step forward. "Worked just like you said it would." Akane's smile was bright.

"Yes, sister, dear," Nabiki continued forward, her grin turning sly, "down to your naivete." She threw out her hand. "Now, take her!"

Piles of junk shifted about them and a horde of virals emerged from their hiding places. Each carried a weapon, from file blockers to more lethal energy pikes, trained on the Guardian. Akane looked around her in dismay.

"I can't believe you fell for that," Nabiki sneered. "You are so weak!"

"I can't believe you would betray us, betray me, like this, Nabiki," Akane sighed. She lifted her hand, revealing a small cylinder clutched in her fist. "But I'm not surprised." She jammed her thumb down on the end of cylinder.

The first wave of explosions caused Nabiki to throw her arms over her head in defense. A second ring exploded further out, sending more virals and junk flying into the air. As a third ring went up, Nabiki glanced up at her sister, to find Akane simply standing there amidst the fire and falling debris, watching her sadly.

A final set of explosives detonated, and the fallout crashed to the ground, leaving the sisters standing in dead silence. The green of Nabiki's face had paled, and her eyes were wide open. The corrupted sprites, mouth moved silently, unable to voice her shock.

On the other hand, Akane appeared calm, almost unflappable. It was in her eyes that Nabiki could see the pain, sadness and betrayal. Slowly Akane stepped forward, pulling a small pistol from behind her back. She raised it, slowly, but deliberately.

"YOU DIDN'T TRUST ME!" Nabiki exclaimed, stumbling backwards.

Akane shook her head taking another step. "Like Kasumi said, I couldn't take the risk."

Quickly, suppressing her shock, Nabiki smirked. "I suppose now you're going to say something cliched like: 'this is for your own good,' then shoot me."

Gun still outstretched, Akane took another step forward. "I thought about it but, it didn't seem right."

Nabiki's smirk widened. "Afraid not, sister dearest." Quickly she raised her own arms, one hand thrust towards Akane, the other wrapped about her wirst. "BIND!" A massive energy web erupted from the black armour enveloping her hand.

"Wha?" Akane's finger twitched, striking the firing stud, as the energy web wrapped around her. A single sizzling blast leapt from her weapon and across the space between the sisters. Nabiki cried in agony as the energy sliced through her armour and across the bitmap on her arm.

Helpless, trapped within the bonds of Nabiki's bind command, Akane fell heavily to the ground. She watched as Nabiki limped over, clutching at the gash down her arm, energy leaking profusely.

"You'll pay for that," she sneered. "I promise you." With her good arm, she snatched a small communicator from her side. "Get a recovery team here immediately! I have Kuno's prize!"

*****

Kasumi sighed deeply and hit the save button for the umpteenth time. Finally she had finished deleting Nabiki's access codes from the registry. A last keystroke sent a progress bar slowly across the screen as the files recompiled.

She looked up at the binomes set at the stations about the control room. A few were gazing blankly at their screens, eyes glazed over in boredom, another was playing chess against the computer, and one was even snoozing at his station. The only person in the room that still seemed busy was Kasumi's own assistant, the geek binome.

"Enty?" she called sweetly.

The one binome lifted his head and adjusted his glasses over his eye. "Yes Kasumi, ma'am?"

"Is there anything that needs my attention?"

"No, ma'am. Everything has been quiet since Akane dealt with that last attempt to break in."

Kasumi nodded distractedly. "Good, I think I'll go relax. If you need me, I'll be in my workshop, fixing Fuchikoma." A thoughtful look on her face, the swept out of the room.

*****

It was a bound and gagged Akane that was dragged before the virus Kuno. Nabiki and her battered virals strode victorious off the elevator, the later carrying their struggling captive above their heads. Their footfalls on the wire mesh rang out across the platform, causing Kuno to look up. He absently noted the reassembler patch attached to Nabiki's arm.

"Here we go, Kuno baby," Nabiki grinned. "I told you she would be gullible enough to fall for it." She slunk over to the virus, and lay a conspiring arm up onto the virus' shoulder. "So what are you going to do with her now that you've got her? See if you can force an interface?"

Kuno gave her a droll look. "Please, my villainous ally, do not speak so crudely of the lady I desire. She is, after all, your sister!"

Nabiki snorted. "She's also a sickeningly sweet goody-two-shoes." She turned and strode away. "You'll never get her to serve you. Not willingly. And you can't use that machine on her, the way you did with me."

"In that you are correct, my twisted lieutenant." Kuno stalked over to where Akane was still being held by the virals. He gazed into her eyes, meeting only strong defiance in return. "It pains me to do so, but I must take drastic measures to win her over."

Nabiki turned to look over her shoulder at him, an eyebrow raised. "Such as?"

"Tragically I must send the frail flower that is my love to have her PID exteracted." He stood, arm raised to his forehead in a symbol of tragedy.

A feral grin broke out on Nabiki's countenance. "Well then, Kuno-baby, since it pains you so much, why don't you let me take her down to the PID extraction room?"

It was Kuno's turn to stare at her inquisitively. "Surely the prospect of torturing your own sister disturbs you."

Nabiki shrugged casually. "Not in the least."

"You are truly evil."

"Thank you, Kuno-baby." She strode past him. "This way boys!" The virals, still carrying the helpless Akane, tromped off after her.

*****

The PID extraction chamber was a torture room designed for only one purpose: forcing a sprite to give up the code that would allow another to control its every action. Since time beyond measure, all process had been given an identification that registered the connected sprite with the system, in case of backup or upgrade.

Unfortunately, Viruses and Hackers had discovered that the sword had two edges. Not only could it protect a sprite, but it could also be used to access that sprite's higher functions, including their very thoughts. And so, the PID extraction chamber was built.

It was one such chamber that Akane was now held in. It was a large metal cylinder, with metal bars and chains that held the sprite spread eagle and hanging in mid-air. She had fought, of course, but the collective strength of the virals had overwhelmed her.

Nabiki stood behind the closed glass door to the cylinder, smirking at her. She reached up and slid aside a small panel. "Well sister dearest, soon all that pride and righteousness of yours will be gone, and you'll be the unwilling slave of Kuno!"

"Better unwilling than corrupted!" Akane spat back.

"So valiant in your resistance." Nabiki reached up to the control panel beside the door. "I hope you stay that way. Remember I said you'd pay for hurting me? Well, I've set this machine to a low setting. It'll hurt, probably worse than losing Ranma did, but not enough to break you quickly." She chuckled. "Hopefully, you'll be screaming for microseconds before you give up you PID."

Behind her, in the shadows, two pairs of eyes shared a worried glance.

Nabiki gave a quick salute to her sister. "Goodbye, Akane," she sneered, then slapped the controls.

Akane's scream cut across the room.

*****

Kasumi stepped into her workshop and gazed around. Before it had been a peaceful place, with strange machines and robots hanging in spotlight amidst the darkness. Now, however, the room was fully lit, and the sprites she had gathered for her think tank were busily doing what they did best, inventing.

Doc and Cid were sitting over in one corner, pouring over some of the disassembled drive parts of Ukyo's fighter. Every so often one would scribble something on a file folder and pass it to the other. It looked like the job was going to take a lot longer than they had expected, but would indeed be worth it when they had finished. For one thing, they had already started work on a new frame for the vehicle, and it was going to be much bigger than the original.

Scotty and his crew were progressing a little better, but they weren't working with hardware. Instead they were altering the very firmware of the system. They had simulations up and running. The only thing they had shown was that they would only have one chance with this, there could simply be no test runs.

Fuchikoma was the only one there not doing anything. Well, he was lying on the floor groaning every so often, but that wasn't much. The pounding he had received fighting Gosunkugi and Sasuke had bent his frame in places, and they'd even managed to get in a lucky punch that started a slow energy leak.

Kasumi knelt down next to the red mecha. "Its okay, Fuchikoma, I'm here to make you better."

"Thank you, ma'am," he managed weakly. "How's Akane?"

This gave Kasumi a reason to pause. She hadn't seen or heard from her sister for many hundreds of nanoseconds. "I don't know. I'm sure she must be off relaxing somewhere."

*****

The tortured screams could be heard even in the smelter room deep beneath the Tor. Of course, it helped that the torture chamber was also deep beneath the Tor. Gosunkugi and Sasuke, the two black henchbots, glanced towards the source of the cries, then each other, and finally returned to staring mournfully down at the river of molten metal below.

Gosunkugi hung himself limply over the railings and sighed deeply. "I hate this."

"I know," Sasuke commented. "I wish Nabiki would close the chamber so we could have some peace."

"I wish Ranma was here."

"Yeah, I... WHAT?!" cried Sasuke, then he tried to hush his partner. "Don't say things like that. If Kuno hears, there'll be trouble. Come to think of it, why would you say something like that?"

"Because if Ranma was here, he'd have rescued Akane by now. Then she wouldn't be suffering, and we wouldn't have to live with doing all this bad stuff."

Sasuke paused. "You don't like doing bad stuff?"

"It was okay when he was around, cause we knew we'd be stopped, but now..." Gosunkugi deflated a little more. "Fighting Akane isn't right. Neither is hurting her. Everything been wrong since he quit file."

Sasuke rolled over to his partner and looked down at the molten river below. "Yeah, even Kuno doesn't want us anymore." The smaller bot rolled over to his partner. "Maybe we should change sides." His tone suggested a joke.

"Yeah, maybe we should."

Sasuke looked thoughtful. "I'm sure Kasumi would pay us a lot more than Kuno does."

Next to him Gosunkugi lifted his head to gaze at his partner. "Kuno pays us?"

"Ah..." Sasuke considered it for a second. "No."

"Then I guess she'd have to." He went back to hanging over the railing. "They'd never trust us."

Glancing around to make sure they were alone, Sasuke leant in to whisper in Gosunkugi's ear. "Maybe they will if we rescue Akane."

Like a bullet, Goskungi shot upright. "Let's go!"

*****

The door to the barracks slammed open, startling the CPUs inside. Cards, chips, and rom went flying everywhere as binomes scrambled to their feet. Many relaxed when they saw it was not the defender, sorry Guardian-cadet, on a rampage, but instead the red bug-like mecha. Others were smarter.

"Where's Akane?!" Fuchikoma demanded, doing the best stomp his short legs would allow.

Zeros and ones exchanged confused or blank stares while making unknowing sounds. A zero looked thoughtful for a moment before speaking. "I believe the last time I saw here was at the armory. She was checking out a few hundred minibombs."

Fuchikoma stared at him for a few seconds. "YOU IDIOT! She's gone out on her own!" He spun about, then scuttled towards the door. "Come on, she may need our help!"

"That would be a first," a zero muttered as they filed out.

*****

Agony coursed through her pixels as the magnetic fields washed over her, searing her body and mind like an all-consuming fire. It was nothing like she had ever felt before, and there was no escape from it, except corruption. With every pass she could feel her electrons being shifted against bonds. Worse, the time between passes changed, sometimes she would come down from one blast only to immediately be struck again. Then there were the times, like now, when she hung there for what felt like seconds, with nothing but the dull aching memory of pain.

Outside, Nabiki grinned. The screams of her sister were almost musical, and certainly enjoyable. It was all she could do to keep herself from burst into an uncharacteristic bout of maniacal laughter.

She became aware of Gosunkugi as he trundled up beside her. "Excuse me."

"What is it?" she snapped, turning to glare at him. "Can't you see I'm enjoying torturing someone?"

Gosunkugi wrung his hands. "Well, yes, you see, that's why we're here?"

Nabiki's clueless "huh?" was drowned out by the sound of the metal bat striking her head.

Back inside the chamber, Akane was suffering through the longest pause yet. 'She's probably paused the machine to wait till I relax before giving me another blast,' Akane thought. 'I won't give her the pleasure.' She looked up to glare at the sprite she knew would be gloating beyond the door.

Instead, she came face to dome with Gosunkugi as he wheeled in through the open door. "Shhh, it's okay," he sounded comforting, confusing Akane.

'Is this some plot of Nabiki's?' she wondered as Gosunkugi extended his hand to release her manacles. Akane collapsed weakly over his arm, and felt his other arm surround her. Carefully, she was gathered up in the robot's metallic arms, cradled like a baby. She couldn't resist the treatment, her body and mind were still too weak from her torture.

She barely felt the movement as the robot carried her from the torture chamber. Beyond, through eyes that kept closing against her will, she saw Sasuke slamming a baseball bat into his hand. At his feet lay the black clad of Nabiki, out to the world if lump on her head and the squiggles in her eyes were any indication.

Smiling, Akane fell into unconsciousness.

"Is she alright?" Sasuke demanded of his partner.

Gosunkugi glanced down at the Guardian cadet in his arms. Akane's normally green skin had paled so far that it seemed almost tinted white and her brown hair had streaks of grey through it. The navy blue cadet's uniform she wore had shreds sliced out of it, leaving it a lot more risque outfit.

"No."

"We'd better get her somewhere safe."

"The Principal Office," Gosunkugi suggested.

"Let's go."

*****

Fuchikoma and the binome posse sailed across the sky above the sector known as G-Prime. Normally, an answering squadron of ABCs would have met an attack of this force. It was for this reasons that the CPU binomes were glancing about nervously as they flew two to a zip-board.

Their leader, desperately trying to balance on a pair of zip-boards, was first to spot the reason for the lack of response. A fire-fight had broken out around the Tor, bolts of energy flying, all missing their targets, but damaging more of the viral craft. Using his zoom lens, Fuchikoma focused on the shapes dodging wildly about the tower.

It was to his surprise that the targets were none other than the two robots, Gosunkugi and Sasuke. Briefly he wondered what was going on, then he spotted the bundle Gosunkugi was carrying and zoomed in on it. "AKANE!"

His first reaction was to rush in and save her, however, he quickly realised that the only thing keeping Akane and the bots safe were the small number of friendly units in the air. So long as the virals were bumping into each other in order to get to their targets, no one was hitting anything.

Instead he needed a plan, but plans weren't what he was good at. So he did the one thing no other hero in Mainframe would do. He opened a comm channel. "Madam Kasumi?"

"Yes, Fuchikoma?"

"Sasuke and Gosunkugi have Akane and are being chased all around the Tor by Kuno's entire force."

There was a long pause. "It sounds like they are trying to rescue her. What are your mikes picking up?"

Fuchikoma paused to check. "Cries of 'mommy', and an argument about whether or not Sasuke said this was a bad idea. Akane does not appear to be online."

"Okay, I'm putting every CPU unit I have into the air. Hopefully that mass mobilisation will draw off enough ABCs to let you get in and get Akane and the bots out. But watch them, this may be a trick."

Fuchikoma needlessly saluted. "Yes, ma'am!"

*****

Nabiki groaned as she watched the battle outside the tower. An observer might think she had a headache caused by a blow to the back of the head with a metal bat. This was an accurate observation, but not the cause of her discomfort.

No, her groan was, in fact, caused by the mounting causalities being reported. So far, twenty percent of the ABCs had been taken out of the battle by damage or straight out deleted. Kuno did not help the chaos of the battle, shouting a stream of non-stop, and often contradictory, orders.

Nabiki sighed. There had been some fun, but knew what would happen next. Glancing at the long-range scanners confirmed her belief. "Kuno! Shut UP!" she snapped forcefully.

The virus fell silent but turned to glare at his subordinate, who didn't even look up from her panels to catch it.

"All units, we have enemy incoming from adjacent sectors. Break off pursuit and form up into squadrons. Red, green and Blue squadrons, intercept units on vector oh-three-five. Gold and silver, take vector one-eight-five and one-seven-zero, attempt to flank the battlemovers approaching from sector 10011. Copper, protect Gold and Silver from the air support in that area."

"But my goddess!" Kuno spat.

Nabiki spared him an irritated glance. "We can always recapture her later. I don't think you could keep her without the Tor."

*****

The sudden exit by the ABCs left Sasuke hovering in the air, bewildered. His partner wasn't so smart.

"MOMMY!" Gosunkugi cried as he continued to dodge non-existent blasts.

"Ah, Gos... you can stop now, they're gone."

"Huh?" He looked about at the empty sky, and at the Tor. "What happened?"

"I don't know," Sasuke admitted slowly. "They just all left."

"We scared them off!" Gosunkugi cried happily. He would have thrown hs hands in the air, but decided Akane wouldn't like that, seeing as she was nestled there.

"No, you didn't!" Fuchikoma snapped, as he and his CPUs swooped down. "They're off dealing with our diversion! Now, hand over Akane."

Gosunkugi shook his dome. "Nah ah. We're saving her."

Fuchikoma paused and stared at the bots. "Whatever. Let's get going!"

*****

"A disaster!" Kuno cried, staring down at the scarred and battered ruins of his fleet of ABCs. "A complete and unmitigated disaster! How can the plots of a virus as perfect as I be foiled by such simple sprites?! Why must nothing go as planned?!"

Behind him, wrapped in shadows, Nabiki watched him carefully. "Oh no, Kuno-baby, everything is going exactly as planned."

*****

Blurry eyes opened to a blazing fluorescent panel boarded by stark white that stabbed at her eyes. Her hands ached, her feet ached, her bitmap ached, her mind ached, hell, even her clothes ached. The tired mind clicked into something resembling gear, and buzzed over the cliche questions. 'Who am I? Where am I? What happened? Who's going to pay for it?'

'Akane. Don't know. I was tortured. Nabiki,' were the answers she received. However, it hurt too much to ask questions, so instead she simply muttered. "An unfamiliar ceiling." She immediately regretted it.

First, she discovered that her voice ached, incredibly enough. It wasn't so much that her lips hurt to move, or her chest protested about having to breath so much. It was that the very words hurt.

Second was that her ears immediately protested having to hear someone say: "Akane? Oh, you're awake."

Kasumi's smiling, but worried, face appeared in her vision. "Please, don't move, don't speak. You're still suffering from the effects of the electromagnetic torture." Her smile brightened. "You will get better, but you don't have to hurry. I have two new defenders to help me out while your in bed."

Still mentally fog bound, Akane could only smile at her sisters comforting words. As she slipped back into sleep, fleeing the pain of her body, she didn't even wonder who the new defenders were.


	11. v 2,4,2

Wild Boot: The Net Games

By David Farr

Tenchi Muyo is copyright of AIC : Pioneer LDC, INC. ReBoot is the property of Mainframe. Ranma 1/2 is copyrighted by Rumiko Takahashi/Shogakukan,Inc. All are used here respectfully for the purposes of fanfiction. This story may be redistributed only if unchanged and no fee is charged.

My thanks go to my Prereaders: Allan Bryant, Ammadeau, David Johnston, Jin and Shane.

*****

Tsunami: I come from the User

Bringing Light and Protection

To the people of Jurai

And all citizens of the web

In hope

That one day

We will all know peace

*****

v 2.4.2: Histories Clash! A Final Battle.

*****

Lightning clashed above their heads, illuminating the darkened sky-dome and the nightmarish landscape beyond the lakeshore. Even in the pauses between the bursts of light, the group of sprites could make out the twisted bare trees rising from the infected landscape thanks to the glowing veins of deep purple viral energy.

For Tenchi, the sight struck him to the very core of his being. This was the system he had spent his entire process in. Somewhere out amongst the infection were the ruins, probably warped beyond recognition, of places he had fond memories of: his school (well, what was left of it); the fields in which he had trained with his grandfather; his mother's memorial. Anger seethed within in him, but his training kept it from showing beyond the clenching of his fists.

"You came into a game when the system was like this?" RyoGA asked, staring in disbelief at the devastation about them.

"It was not like this when the game fell," Aeka replied shortly. "This is a new development."

Ukyo knelt on the edge of the Ryo-oh's dome, just clear of where the webship's hull met the energy lake. "We're lucky this island is floatin', else the virus could just infect it from the lakebed." She looked up. "But I've never seen a virus infect an entire system like this before."

Washuu snorted from where she stood, arms crossed, watching the four new sprites. "I'm not surprised, Kagato was always an inventive son-of-a-virus."

"You know this virus?" Ukyo asked, standing and turning towards the compiler.

"He's not a virus, just a sprite. I'm not sure where he got it from, but this was an infection he picked up. The way he's been using it, I don't think he was forcibly infected either."

"You mean he volunteered to be infected?" Sasami inquired. The young princess still cradled the small cat/rabbit creature Ryo-ohki in her arms. "But that's random!"

"No one ever described him any other way, Sasami. If the virus offered Kagato power, he'd take it, that's the way he is." Washuu looked out over the system. "And I'd definitely say he got power."

"Tell me something," Ranma's first comment in a while caused everyone to jump, "does this Kagato wear an icon like this?" He tapped the area just beneath his icon. The others stared at him, Ukyo, RyoGA and Shampoo all seeing an unusual seriousness in the young Guardian.

Aeka stared at him in confusion. "Why yes, he does, Ranma. Is this important?"

"SPAM!" The vehemence with which Ranma spat the curse caused everyone, even Tenchi, to take a step away from the Guardian. "Spam! Spam! Spam!" He spun about, shuddering with repressed rage.

"Ranma, what wrong?" Shampoo inquired, stepping forward. "You know Kagato? Is Guardian?"

"I know of him," Ranma replied, his voice hissing angrily through his teeth. "He was meant to be purged."

"Wait a sec, Ranma-honey," Ukyo interjected. "I know Guardian history, there's only been one purge ever called by the collective, and that was somethin' like two gigacycles ago."

"And how do you know Guardian history?" RyoGA inquired.

"Know thine enemy," Ukyo shot back. "I studied the Guardians in depth when I was gettin' ready to hack the Supercomputer. Never knew what could brin' out a weakness in their defences."

"Actually two gigacycles sounds about right," Washuu added. "Kagato came to me as a student about that long ago." She paused. "Although if I had known someone wanted him deleted that badly I would have shot him myself."

"I am afraid I do not understand," Aeka stepped forward. "What did this Kagato do that earned him such hatred?"

Ukyo shrugged. "I never really found out. Guardians don't really like talkin' about him, all I ever got was a reference to his great betrayal."

"I'm not surprised you never found out," Ranma commented, his voice deathly quiet. "The story isn't even told to cadets." He turned back, his face serious and sad. "But I think you should all know it, because we are going to have to face him.

"It happened back when the Guardians were newly formed, when we and the Keytools first started protecting the Net."

"Excuse me, Ranma, but what is a Keytool?" Aeka interrupted politely. Her sister nodded energetically.

"Is tool Guardians use to fix tears and other stuff," Shampoo replied. "Makes Guardians good warriors."

"No Shampoo, a Keytool is much more than that." Ranma closed his eyes, and Ukyo noticed that his left hand was constantly clenching and unclenching. "A Keytool is a process, just like a sprite, only they can't communicate using our language. By themselves they have power, but little self-direction, so they work with a Guardian and help him or her to protect others. It's a bond of trust.

"In all the history of the collective, only one sprite has violated that trust...

"A few cycles before a Guardian and Keytool had found themselves in a real crisis. They had been fighting a virus, and the Keytool was damaged to the point where it could no longer function. The virus had been defeated, but the system was unstable, and there were tears popping up all over the place. Stuck for another solution the Keytool decided to sacrifice itself, transferring its code - and powers - to the Guardian. The result was... more than expected.

"That Guardian and Keytool were made heroes, posthumously unfortunately, as the merged entity expended all its energy to repair the system. The Guardians discussed the idea of encouraging more merges, but in the end it was decided to reserve it only for emergencies, and only in emergencies. They went as far as to organise a council that would investigate any merges, and dictate punishments if the merge was decided to be unnecessary. However, not everyone gave up on the idea.

"At that time Kagato was a researcher trying to find better ways to deal with viruses. He concentrated on weapons, if our history docs are right. However, unknown to everyone, he started research on the merge. In time, he found a way to force the Keytool to merge, but it was a long process, and he was discovered before he could complete it. Parser, the Keytool that had chosen him, was gone, but Kagato had only a fraction of the power of a true merge.

"What followed was a Net wide sprite-hunt. Kagato could go nowhere without a Guardian or CPU finding him. The Guardian collective ordered him deleted on sight, and Guardians and Keytools alike were more than happy to do it. He was believed lost when his ship was destroyed in the Back-of-Beyond, but obviously that was only a ruse, allowing him to slip out onto the web."

"Where he met up with me," Washuu finished. "I thought he was just a brilliant scientist from some small system who had figured out how to protect himself from the web. Certainly he was in awe of my knowledge." The little compiler burst into a smile. "But who wouldn't be?"

Everyone sweatdropped.

"He was floating around ready to quit file when I came across him. I offered to take him to the nearest system, but instead he begged me to take on him on as a pupil." She paused for a moment to fondly remember how she had put him through hell - ah, seriously tested his commitment - before finally giving in. "He absorbed knowledge like a superdisc, and was always studying this or that." She snorted. "I trusted him so much that I let him help me when I decided to have a child."

"You and Kagato did that? And Ryoko is his...?" Mihoshi cried in shock. "Eww."

"Nothing like that!" Washuu snapped. "True, I assembled Ryoko from bytes of my own code, but she is not the result of normal reproduction."

"You can say that again," Aeka murmured.

"I wrote her code, not allowed it to compile naturally. She has no father. I am her only parent!"

"But Kagato had a hand in her creation, and did something," Ranma interjected.

"Yes. He altered Ryoko's mental processes. She could still act of her volition, but Kagato could influence her, either subtly, as he has since her creation, or directly like he did before the game. The first I knew of all this was when the phreaker used her to capture me!"

"Oh, poor Ryoko," Mihoshi weeped, "betrayed by her father."

"HE IS NOT HER FATHER!" Washuu roared, blowing over the blubbering detective.

Shampoo nodded. "Then we have two reasons to delete him. Must save system, and avenge Ryoko and Parser."

"I think that's three, Shampoo honey," Ukyo pointed out.

"He has to be in the Principal Office," Tenchi declared. "That's the only way he could do this," he waved at the infected city beyond the lake, "so quickly."

The others looked at him, surprised that he had spoken so definitely.

Ranma nodded and tossed out a zip-board. "Lead the way, defender."

*****

"SPAMMER! BUG! NEWBIE!" Ryoko screamed, continuing to struggle vainly in her spotlight prison. "When I get out of this I going to decompile your greyscale bitmap so thoroughly they won't be able to assemble a hair!"

"Oh, mute it," Kagato told her, a touch of impatience in his voice. Ryoko, despite herself, fell silent. He turned back to the window, examining the group shown there carefully. "Guardian Ranma Saotome, my, my, my."

Despite her ranting, Ryoko had heard enough of the conversation he was watching to know that the young Guardian's last name had not been mentioned. Her eyes focused on the window, and the image of the sprites travelling through the twisted landscape. 'If Kagato hasn't been on the Net in two gigacycles, how does he know of this Ranma?'

"She will not be pleased to find out her web creature failed," he murmured again, still staring at the vid window. "But I'm sure a much more personal account of his death will sate her anger." He turned to face Ryoko, a sly grin on his face. "And you will help me, won't you Ryoko?"

*****

The entrance of the Principal Office loomed over the assembled group. Shampoo peered into the darkened doorway, trying to discern shapes in the inky depths, but the only movement she could see was, she knew, her imagination. Like the city behind them, the Principal Office was empty, as silent as the Trash Bin.

Ranma spun slowly to face the group. "Okay Tenchi, you're the local, what's our best plan?"

The defender was suddenly the uncomfortable centre of attention. "Well, I know the Principal Office has a anti-virus command in the core chamber. I'm not sure if it will be strong enough to fix this." He glanced back at the twisted city.

"It will be once I'm through with it!" Washuu announced grandly. She quieted down. "However Kagato's control of the system will prevent it from initialising."

"I'd better go with her," Ukyo added. She smiled at the smaller sprite. "Two heads are better than one."

Tenchi nodded. "Take Sasami too. With all the virals that are probably crawling around the system she's probably safest with you."

"But I wanna help, Tenchi," the young princess whined.

It was Aeka who came to Tenchi's aid. "Sasami, you are not a combatant, you a princess of . If you wish to help us, it is best if you are somewhere safe."

Sasami's eyes narrowed. "You're a princess too, and you're going," she accused.

"She's right," Ranma interjected. "Shampoo, RyoGA, you take Princess Aeka and see if you can't find Ryoko. Don't engage Kagato, call us when its time for that."

Sasami sighed. "Okay. But Tenchi, take Ryo-ohki, that way you can find Ryoko easier."

"Okay, Sasami."

Giving a happy miya, the small cabbit leapt from the princess' head onto Tenchi's shoulder.

"But that leave you alone with only defender boy and bubble girl," Shampoo pointed out.

Both Tenchi and Ranma turned to regard the clueless detective. She stared back looking confused. "So who am I supposed to go with?"

"Hmmm..." Everyone turned to find Washuu regarding her holographic keyboard. The little Compiler looked up. "I think it would be best if Mihoshi came with us." This brought surprised looks from the others, which Washuu silenced with a wave. "From what I know of Kagato and the scans I've taken, Tenchi and Ranma have the best chance of taking on Kagato, thanks to Tenchi's Jurai powers and Ranma's unknown quantity. Adding Mihoshi, or anyone else for that matter, to the equation only lowers the probability of a favourable outcome by involving hostages for Kagato to use."

Tenchi nodded, pulled out a file folder and quickly started sketching on it. "Then Mihoshi goes with Washuu, Ukyo and Sasami to the core chamber." He passed the folder to Washuu. "This map will help you get there, but I don't have the access codes."

Ukyo smiled. "Tha's what I'm along for, Tenchi-honey."

"And I will go with Guardian Ranma's other two companions and see if we can find that software pirate Ryoko." Aeka didn't sound to happy. "Although I do not see why."

"We'll also see if we can find the armoury while we're at it," Ryoga added.

"Fine, let's go," Ranma spun his zip-board and slid into the dark passageways of the Principal Office.

*****

Ukyo glanced about at the corridors as they walked. She wondered who had designed the layout. Unlike the cramped technological feel of Mainframe, Nippon's Principal Office was filled with wide soaring corridors. High above their heads, ornate buttresses crossed. Light came not from hanging laps or inset panels, but instead from torches burning in scones on the wall.

"Gothic," Ukyo commented.

Washuu nodded absently. "According to Tenchi's map it should be just up ahead."

"Ya think so honey?" Ukyo inquired sarcastically, staring at the large door marked 'Core control chamber.'

Washuu glared daggers at the other sprite. "Fine then, miss Hacker, want to open them?"

Grinning, Ukyo paced over to the door and looked it over. "Hmmm... this is system is paranoid about its security."

"How long will it take you to open?" Sasami inquired, popping up beside her.

Ukyo frowned. "Too long." She took a few steps away. "Everyone step back, I'm going to have to cut it open."

"Won't that take longer?"

Grinning once more, Ukyo pulled a small red and white marble from her belt and casually expanded the Pokeball. "Not with my special tools. Vulpix, I choose you!" The ball split open in her hand, and spat forth a jagged bolt of red light that formed into the cute fox pokemon. "Vulpix, use your flame thrower to--" She was cut off by the door groaning open. "Wha?"

A quick glance at an equally baffled Washuu showed that the Complier wasn't responsible, and the little princess was looking on in awe as well. For a few nanoseconds Ukyo could only stand and wonder before she spotted Mihoshi standing next to the doors controls.

"Wow, I guess that is the passcode," the ditzy detective announced.

"What is?" Ukyo inquired reflexively.

Mihoshi turned, smiling. "Well, I took my compile day, and added the number of torches in the corridor, then I divided it by frequency of the standard communication window, applied the Hamming Distance as a exponent and finally used the parity as a multiplier. Simple really."

Ukyo stared at her for a few moments. "Yah're the luckiest sprite I have ever met," she murmured, awed.

"You got that right," Washuu snorted. "Come on, let's get to work." She strode purposefully into the core control chamber.

Beyond the portal was a large circular chamber. A large console circled the entire chamber, and a single column rose out of the centre, also sporting terminals. Washuu immediately headed over to the central column, the terminals there coming to life as her digits touched them.

Ukyo pulled out her other three pokeballs, realising the cute animals contained within. "You four pokemon watch the door, I don't want any one sneaking up on us." There was a collective cry from the sprites and they scampered off to set up positions at the door.

"Excuse me, Ukyo," Sasami's quiet voice drew her attention. "What should I do?"

"Hmm... yah have some training, don't yah, sweety?" The little girl nodded in reply to Ukyo's question. "Okay, see if yah can locate the PIDs of those missin' system sprites."

"Okay!" Sasami happily cried, and she skipped over to one of the consoles.

"Meanwhile, I'll see if I can get soma the heat off the others."

"Umm... excuse me." Mihoshi waved her hands, but was ignored by the three busy sprites. "Oh, what can I do?" She wandered over to an empty section of console. "I'm not sure what to do." Glancing over at the others she saw their serious faces, even little Sasami. "I shouldn't interrupt them." She leaned against the panel, her hand resting on a keypad.

A small draw hissed open beside her, revealing a pink cube lying in there. "Oh, what's this." She pulled out the cube and looked at it. "Wow, I think if I do this--" she said turning the top of the cube. "No, maybe this." Quickly she twisted the left side. "No, this? This? This?" She continued to manipulate the cube. "That doesn't wo--" Without a sound Mihoshi vanished.

*****

"Are you getting anything with that eye of yours?" Aeka demanded, glaring at Shampoo.

"If spoilt princess would mute for few moments, maybe Shampoo could concentrate," the amazon snapped back.

RyoGA sighed, rolled his eyes, and tried to ignore them as he gazed down the corridors. Ever since they had spilt off from the others, the pair had been fighting. He wondered if there was some kind of software compatibility chart he'd missed, because he couldn't figure out what was causing the arguments.

"SPOILT! How dare you!" Aeka snapped.

"Is very easy," Shampoo returned, glaring at her with narrowed eyes.

Aeka drew herself up and gave Shampoo a superior stare. "Well, at least I can speak properly!"

RyoGA's head snapped around. Something was wrong, and it had nothing to do with the fight.

Shampoo drew her gun, and waved it at the princess. "You no make fun of way Shampoo parse."

"Oho," Aeka lifted a hand to her mouth, as if talking in stage whisper, "now we see the way the one-eyed amazon really is. Violence is always the answer, is that it?"

"Is better than insults," Shampoo returned, "it no hurt for as long." She grinned lifting Gun up beside her head.

RyoGA turned, about to silence the pair, when the attack came.

The first bolt hit the wall next to the quarrelling pair, sending Aeka sprawling. The next would have taken out RyoGA himself, if he hadn't thrown himself sideways immediately.

"My, my, Ryoko, is that anyway to say hello?"

The arrogance in the voice caused RyoGA to bristle as he lay on the floor. Slowly he raised himself and turned to face their attackers. The woman, Ryoko, hovered off the ground, a glowing globe of energy held in one outstretched hand. Her companion, captor and master, floated beside her, calmly watching them.

"Princess," RyoGA whispered out the side of her mouth, "can you take the girl?"

"Yes, I believe so," her tone did not fill him with confidence. "But where is Shampoo?"

A cat's hiss at his feet told RyoGA the answer to that. "She's out of the battle for now."

Kagato was surprised when the orange sprite started to glow purple, although he didn't show it. Whatever unusual ability the boy had, it would not be enough.

"Now AEKA!" RyoGA declared, thrusting his hands out. "SHI SHI HOUKODAN!"

The blast of game energy shot down the corridor, followed moments later by a sizzling ball of lightning. RyoGA paused for only a second to reappraise Aeka, before they both leapt forward on the attack.

Ryoko shot forward, and flickered out to reappearing on the other side of the Aeka's blast. She immediately raised he hand and threw a volley of blasts towards the approaching Aeka. The princess dodged some, letting others splash onto her force field.

Meanwhile Kagato simply took the massive beam. RyoGA, following the blast, lashed out at the smug renegade, but his fist impacted on a shield of energy that formed around Kagato. Chuckling, the older sprite smashed his own fist into RyoGA, sending him flying back.

Aeka twisted as she approached the pirate, her hands charged with energy. As they passed each other Aeka fired another blast, but Ryoko vanished. Pain, as a fist impacted in Aeka's back, told her where the other had gone.

RyoGA grinned at the other. "I've never tried this on a sprite," he declared, raising a finger. "BAKUSAI TENKETSU."

Kagato continued to smirk as the game sprite thrust out. The blow struck the shield, and shattered it, causing the smirk to vanish as shards of energy fell about them. His energy sword exploded into life, it's green glowing blade swinging up to parry RyoGA's thrust.

Finger met sword, and for a tic the two combatants held their positions. Then Kagato's sword flared up, sending a burst of energy outwards, sending Frisket flying back.

Kagato turned to see that Ryoko had subdued the princess. Aeka continued to struggle in the pirates grip, but with her arms held securely above her head by her floating captor, Aeka could only vent by firing blasts at the roof.

"Well, princess, you and your two--" Frisket leapt on top of him, trying to bite his head off. A single blast sent him flying again, this time knocking him out.

"Now, princess, as I was saying, you and your two animal guardians..." he paused and looked around. "And where is that girl that turned into a cat?"

Ryoko looked around and shrugged.

Kagato sighed, it seemed that the young Guardian's companions would had a number of surprises in store. "Come then, these two will have to do." He reached out with his power and lifted the offline dog.

*****

Otaru watched as his three Sabre binomes faced off against the Garlant Sabre binomes. He knew that Lime, Cherry and Bloodberry were three of the most powerful Sabre binomes ever created by sprites, thanks to the virgin modules that acted as their hearts.

Unfortunately Lynx, Tiger, and Panther also had virgin modules, and unlike his three, they had military training and a lot more experience. Still, he believed in the three artificial girl binomes. As long as they fought together, all four of them, nothing could defeat them.

"Come on," Lynx, the blue haired one binome growled. "Let's get this over with."

"Yeah," her blonde haired zero partner, Panther seconded, "we don't have time for this!"

The Japoness foursome didn't answer, responding instead by reading themselves for combat. Before they could move, however, a glittering shape appeared between the two parties.

Mihoshi looked around, spotted the unfamiliar faces and then turned her gaze down at the cube. "Oh, a Goto command. I'd better get back to the others." She thought about it for a few seconds. "Ummm, I think this is how I do it." She twisted the cube a few times and vanished.

Otaru stood blinking. "That... was a real girl. They DO still exist!"

*****

"Miya?" Ryo-ohki mewed looking around in confusion. She focussed for a moment on both of the corridors that lead onwards, then turned and looked back the way they had come. Finally, she hopped over to the other two sprites.

"I think she's lost it again," Ranma commented.

Tenchi looked over at him. "The way I understood it, she and Ryoko have some kind of contextual link. So Ryo-ohki should be able to get some feeling for where she is."

"Contextual link? That mean that if Ryoko was moving around..."

"... it would take some time for the link to renew," Tenchi finished.

"Miya," Ryo-ohki agreed, giving them a large, tearful look.

Tenchi knelt down next to the small cabbit. "Never mind, Ryo-ohki, it's not your fault. We'll just have to find them the old-fashioned way."

"Come on, let's go this way," Ranma indicated the corridor on the left.

"Why left?"

"Because left is right," Ranma shot back.

"What kind of logic is that?"

"As good as any other for this kind of choice."

"Er... okay." He joined Ranma as he walked off. "Tell me Ranma, do you think we can beat Kagato?"

"Of course we can!" Ranma exclaimed. "So he may have the powers of a Keytool plus whatever he learnt off the compiler, but we got your Jurai powers and my martial arts. There ain't nothing that can stop us!"

*****

Mihoshi appeared once again this time forcing two sprites to leap apart.

To one side she could see a zero binome with red hair and an X shaped scar on one cheek. In his hands he held a strange sword with a reversed blade. He was staring intently past Mihoshi at the other combatant.

The other combatant, a one binome was standing, his sword held back and with his other hand reaching forward to touch the tip of the blade. He wore dark blue uniform and matching cap. Like the zero binome, he ignored Mihoshi, concentrating on the battle.

Shrugging, and ignoring the other binomes at the edge of the dojo, Mihoshi went back to fiddling with her command and vanished.

*****

"Pi ka pi ka pi ka," Pikachu chanted as it paced back and forth before the entrance to the control room. Inside the three sprites continued to work busily at their various tasks.

"I've done it!" Sasami cried happily.

Ukyo looked up. "Done what?"

"All PIDs accounted for!" the young princess announced.

"What, all of them?" Ukyo inquired in disbelief. "That's impossible." She pushed herself off from the control panel, allowing her floating chair to carry her across the room.

"Ah huh," Sasami confirmed, pointing at the screen. "See, they're all in the archives."

Ukyo touched the controls a few times. "They look pretty safe too, there's some major inoculation in the complex. I'm truly amazed that they evacuated the entire system without loosing anyone. They must have one hell of a organiser in their numbers."

Sasami looked around. "Where's Mihoshi?"

At the sound of the detective name, Washuu's head popped up and she looked around. "What? She's missing?"

"Strange, I could swear she was here a nano ago," Ukyo comment. "Hey, you guys," she called to the pokemon at the door. "Did Mihoshi pass by you?"

A collection of negative cries answered.

"I wonder where she went?" Ukyo mused. "Oh well, we don't have the time to worry, and she can't get into much trouble by herself."

"Want to place a bet?" Washuu inquired.

*****

Once again Mihoshi found herself in a strange system. This time she was standing on a wire mesh platform, surrounded by machinery.

At one end of the platform stood a serious looking green system sprite in a business suit backed by an equally grim looking sprite in a blue uniform similar to Ranma's. At the other end stood a massive navy blue virus. Beyond the virus sat a large machine, all hoses and containers filled with glowing liquid.

"No, that's still not right," Mihoshi announced, tears coming to her eyes as continued to twist the cube. "Oh, I'll never get back now." Once more the command whisked her away.

*****

Grandiose pipe organ music echoed back at Aeka from the walls of grand cathedral. High above her the roof arched upwards, almost vanishing into the distance. Out of the corner of her eye Aeka could see, if she strained, the entrance, across a thin bridge bordered by still lakes of energy.

As much as she would have linked to sprint, or even better, fly across the bridge to safety, she had herself trapped in what was a humiliating and, it was turning out, painful pose. Ryoko was hovering behind and above her, hands locked around Aeka's wrists, dangling her in mid air.

Giving up on that, her eyes darted towards the "dog" that had once been the Guardian's companion. He was awake once more, although now trapped in a bubble of energy. Obviously he was not enjoying their host's entertainment, as his paws were clasped firmly on his ears.

And that left Kagato, playing the pipe organ with amazing flair. Suddenly he stopped and turned; his last note lingered menacingly in the air for a moment. Smiling, he stood from the organ bench.

"Well, Princess, I am glad you chose to join me," he said smoothly, a charming smile on his face as he approached.

"It's not like you gave me much choice," Aeka shot back.

"Ah, of course, my apologises. Ryoko, let her go."

And the puppet pirate did just that. Suddenly released, Aeka fell to the ground, stumbling as she struck, but quickly regaining her poise.

"What is it you want of me, Kagato?"

"Ah, straight to business then Princess? And here was I thinking we could have a pleasant chit-chat, maybe some electron tea."

Aeka simply levelled one of those looks at him.

"What I want, Princess, is the one thing even the greatest compiler on the web could not reverse engineer," he grinned down at her, "and that is the code of Jurai."

"And you think I will give YOU that. Are you random?"

"Well, either you, or your cute little sister, who is even now watching us, along with the compiler and that Guardian's hacker friend. I am sure she will be more than willing to supply the secret, when I am finished with you."

"I don't think so!" a pair of voices declared from the entrance. Turning everyone found Ranma and Tenchi standing at the far end of bridge, one with his energy sword glowing and the other fists balled.

*****

In the core chamber, Washuu and Ukyo reclined lazily in floating chairs, watching the happens in the cathedral on a vid window.

"Now things'll get interesting," Ukyo commented.

"Yep," Washuu nodded in agreement, "greatest show on the web."

Ukyo leant forward to the girl sitting cross legged in front of them. "Hey, princess, pass the pop3kernels."

"Sure," Sasami replied, taking a handful of snacks before passing back the box.

*****

Mihoshi looked around in confusion. This was the first time she had ever seen a room with clouds in it. Especially since they were these kind of misty blue, with sparkly bits through them.

Two sprites on the bed, one female, the other male, and both naked, along with a floating one binome and a bunch of small identical zero binomes, were looking at her in surprise. At the door two one binomes readied weapons, although Mihoshi really didn't consider a fan and a staff with rings on its end weapons.

Realising she still hadn't got it right, she played with the cube some more and vanished.

Shaking her head, the floating one binome turned to the pair on the bed. "Now, Miaka, as I was saying..."

*****

"Well, well, well, if it isn't the young prince and the lost Guardian. Playing hero to the end are we?" Kagato smirked. "A futile gesture."

Tenchi stepped forward, the lighthawk sword - his glowing blade - held ready. "And why would that be?" he inquired.

Kagato waved his hand, and Aeka was sealed within another energy sphere. "Because you will not harm the lovely pirate, and the Guardian, even if he had a Keytool, is utterly ineffective against me."

Behind Tenchi, Ranma blinked in confusion. "You know, for such a smart guy, you missed a really simple solution." He threw out a zip-board and hopped onto it. "YO! SPIKY HEAD!"

Letting out an animalistic grunt, Ryoko swung around to glare at him.

"I hear you got stuck in trash-bin for a hundred mega-cycles! I must say, you look it!" Ranma quipped.

A frown creased Ryoko's face.

"I really don't know how you expect to attract any sprite with a such a degraded bitmap!"

Ryoko started growing and Tenchi shot his companion a worried glance.

"Oh, I suppose you can also try nulls, they'll go out with ANYTHING!"

Screaming, Ryoko threw an energy blast, which Ranma effortlessly dodged.

Ranma gave a bark of laughter. "Ha! I've seen lowres game sprites with better aim!"

Her silvery face tinged with red, Ryoko snarled and leapt forward at Ranma, claws reaching for him.

Ranma kicked his board, twisting it back to the door. "Have fun Tenchi!" he called as he shot out of sight. Moments later Tenchi was almost blown off his feet as Ryoko bulleted past.

Kagato slowly walked down the stairs, even as Tenchi crossed the thin bridge. "So, boy, it is you, me and--"

*BOOM*

"Ha! You call that an energy blast!" Ranma cried in the distance. Everyone paused, watching the doorway.

"So, boy," Kagato started again, once he was sure they would be no more interruptions, "it is just you, me, and Yosho's sword. But do you even know to use it?"

Tenchi raised the sword. "Of course." He leapt forward, and the air rang with the clash of energy blades.

*****

Another bolt sizzled past Ranma, to strike the wall ahead of him, filling the corridor with smoke and debris. He burst through the cloud, and turned suddenly, zipping down a side-corridor. Moments later, Ryoko pierced the smoke, and she too swooped through the turn to chase Ranma.

Glancing over his shoulder, Ranma saw Ryoko generating another bolt in her hands, and got ready to dodge. For the first time in his run-time, he wondered if maybe he had downloaded more than he could process.

As another section of corridor was vaporised by a near-miss, Ranma could only hope that Tenchi was doing a lot better than he was.

*****

Sword struck sword, sending sparks flying. Tenchi glared at his opponent across their locked energy blades.

"What is it you want, Kagato?"

The viral sprite sneered. "From you, nothing. You can barely control that sword, let alone defeat me. Why don't you just run away, like your ancestor, and let me take what I want from the princess?"

"Leave her with you? NEVER!" Tenchi pushed forward, forcing Kagato back a step and breaking the lock. He swung the light-sword around, but found the blow parried.

Angry, Tenchi stuck, again and again, trying to break through the other's defenses, but blow after blow was parried easily. Finally Tenchi overextended himself, and a strike from Kagato sent him stumbling away.

"Really, boy, what did you hope to do? Come running in and save the system? Or were you thinking more about Ryoko? I saw in her memories that you two were close." He chuckled. "Or at least she thinks that way." Kagato started towards the other sprite. "But it's all for naught."

"I'll show you NAUGHT!" Tenchi cried, turning to lash out.

And Kagato struck back, a mighty blow that sent Tenchi flying down the cathedral stairs.

The viral sprite stood at the top of the stairs, staring down at the boy lying on the floor below. "Foolish boy, now you die!" He raised his sword, ready for the killing blow.

*****

The corridors ended suddenly, and Ranma burst into a massive sphere room. The walls glowed with lines of energy, and below Ranma could see a single large iris lock. Worst of all was that the room offered no other exits.

"SPAM!" Ranma cursed. "The core chamber, just my luck." He swung lazily around to face the entrance, and watched Ryoko shoot into the room.

The software pirate pulled up, gaze locked on the guardian. She grinned evilly, another ball of energy forming in her hand.

"Err... can we talk about this?" Ranma inquired. He knew that without the twists and turns Ryoko would get in the lucky blow.

A blast was Ryoko's reply, and Ranma zipped out of the way. He was forced to flee, as bolt after bolt rained down around him, decimating the walls of the chamber.

Ranma could feel the heat of the explosions on his back as the bolts struck behind him. And with each blast, they were getting closer.

Finally one struck too close. The force sent him flying from the zip-board, and he plummeted down to strike the wall, then slid down. His trip ended when he struck the edge of the lock.

Dazed and battered, he looked up to see Ryoko hovering over him, grinning evilly. Her hand was outstretched and another energy bolt already generated.

Then Ranma felt the energy sear his bitmap.

*****

"Foolish boy, now you die!" Kagato raised his sword, ready for the killing blow.

"Miya!"

"Meow!"

Two balls of fur leapt from the shadows onto Kagato's face. The viral sprite gave a cry of surprise and pain as he stumbled backwards, Neko-Shampoo and Ryo-ohki clawing at his face.

"Cursored creatures!" He dropped his sword, and reached up to grab the two animals. Now trapped, they hissed and spat at him. "Pathetic." He held them out and generated a pair of blasts that sent the two slamming into the far wall.

Neko-Shampoo struck the floor, her head spinning. With the last of her energy she forced herself to look up, hoping that their distraction had worked. Unfortunately, the last thing she saw with her fading consciousness was Tenchi kneeling, bent over his knee, as Kagato started down the stairs.

*****

Ryoko hung in the air as the smoke from the explosion blossomed before her. What little was left of her mind was sure that her prey was dead, but she stayed for confirmation. As the smoke faded, however, a figure was revealed, standing where, moments before, Ranma had lay.

Ryoko blinked, her mind spinning in confusion. The figure was female, and stood with her hands on her hips. More smoke cleared, revealing a full suit of shiny metal armour with metal links showing at the joints. Her head was uncovered, and topped with flame red hair.

"I'm both Ranma Saotome and Glitch!" she declared, raising her hand. "Sorry about this." She released a blast of white energy.

*****

The momentary distraction dealt with, Kagato once more retrieved the hilt of his sword and started down the stairs. "Well boy, it seems you've run out of friends. The princess and her dog-boy companion are my prisoners." He waved at the two force bubbles containing the them. "The Guardian's pet and Ryoko's cute little partner are offline." He glanced at the two furry creatures slumped on the floor. "And the professor, the younger princess and the hacker can't leave the control chamber."

Tenchi rose to one knee, coughing badly. "You forgot someone."

"The Guardian? Don't expect a rescue from him. Without a Keytool he has surely fallen to my puppet by now." Kagato's sword leapt to life in his hand. "Now, young prince, it is time for you to quit file."

Tenchi's sword buzzed into life, spluttered a few times, but finally held steady. "You'll never win Kagato, not while even one of my procedures or variables is still intact." He raised himself to his feet, and wiped a trickle of energy from the corner of his mouth.

"Bold words," Kagato returned, "but, like your process, ultimately futile!" He raised his sword, once again ready to strike a fatal blow.

With a pop, Mihoshi appeared, suspended in mid-air above Kagato. The Cyber-Police detective looked surprised as gravity reclaimed her and she fell downwards. Kagato swept his sword up to strike her away.

And Tenchi leapt forward, his sword flashing outwards.

*****

Ranma-chan entered the cathedral, Ryoko folded over one silver encased shoulder, in time to see Tenchi land, sword held after the strike. Slowly the part-Juraian defender and Kagato turned to face each other.

"Well boy, it appears you managed to defeat me after all. I congratulate you." Kagato's voice was measured. "But if you think you have won, you are sorely mistaken." A soft golden glow crept over his features. "Soon enough you will fall to the one I call mistress." Slowly his body dissolved into golden light.

"NO!" Ranma-chan cried, dropping Ryoko. Instinct driving her, Ranma-chan ran up the steps, her hand outstretched towards the fading glow. The white energy flowed from her hand, enveloping the last of glow.

"Come on!" The transformed Guardian threw his will into the beam. "Return to us!"

An object started to form in the gold glow. It was a rectangular box, and as Ranma and a surprised Tenchi watched more features formed. There was a small cylinder appearing on the top face at one end, along with a small disc that was blossoming in the centre. Slowly the details were added, and finally Ranma halted the power flow.

Exhausted, the Guardian bent, her bitmap paling a few shades as she gulped in air.

"What is it?" Tenchi asked, equally breathless, but for a different reason.

Ranma-chan looked at the object floating before her. "That, Tenchi, is Kagato's Keytool, Parser." She reached out, and the Keytool floated into her hand. Quietly she smiled at it. "Welcome back to land of the functioning."

"Ah, excuse me."

Ranma-chan turned to look at the other sprite. "Hmm?"

"Who are you?"

*****

"I see, Ranma-sama, so that is why you transform into a girl." Aeka looked over the once again male guardian. "But it does not explain the new silver armour?"

The entire group was standing atop the Principal Office, watching as the anti-virus swept across the system. It looked like a wall of energy, erasing the dark blighted landscape, and leaving a pristine city in its wake.

"Well, that goes back to our first game jump," Ranma explained. "While RyoGA, Ukyo, Shampoo and I survived - albeit with damage like Shampoo's eye and Ukyo's arm - Glitch was unable to make the transition. Instead he wrote himself into my code. So now I have bytes of Keytool mixed into me, which lets me do some of his original tricks."

"Including that energy blast you hit me with," Ryoko commented sourly.

"Sorry about that, but I was only returning the favour."

"Heh. Forgiven and forgotten."

Tenchi looked at Ranma. "So what now for you?"

Ranma shrugged. "Back into the games, seeing if we can get back to the net or Mainframe."

"Hey, is this Mainframe of yours on the web?" Ryoko asked.

"Was last time I looked. The connection was guarded but I know the address."

Ryoko grinned, and reached over to pluck Ryo-ohki from Sasami's head. "Then why don't we see about giving you a ride home."

Shampoo perked up. "You do that?!"

Aeka smiled at the others. "Of course, you all helped us without a second parse. It's the least we can do."


End file.
